


the parting line

by from



Series: the parting line + outtakes [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Childhood Friends, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, Pining, Slow Burn, pilot niall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 15:03:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 61,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6570814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/from/pseuds/from
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry and Niall get married for a year to save twelve-thousand jobs (and maybe a couple of lives).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the parting line

**Author's Note:**

> written for 1d big bang 2016, with [badjujuboo](http://archiveofourown.org/users/miztrezboo/pseuds/badjujuboo)'s beautiful header & cover art [here](http://1d-bigbang.livejournal.com/74756.html) and [here](https://fromward.tumblr.com/post/142909044814/the-parting-line-harry-gets-up-theres-nothing)
> 
> a million thanks to [justahopelessromantic](http://archiveofourown.org/users/justahopelessromantic), [brokendrums](http://archiveofourown.org/users/brokendrums), and [foureyedniall](https://foureyedniall.tumblr.com/) for looking it over. a million special thanks to [heauxnarry](https://heauxnarry.tumblr.com/) for her support and company.
> 
> a ficmix is available on [8tracks](http://8tracks.com/fromward/the-parting-line).
> 
> i'm also [fromward](https://fromward.tumblr.com/) on tumblr

_2023_

It's as if a lifetime hasn’t rushed by and Niall’s standing there with flushed cheeks after they drove back to Manchester from Barton Aerodrome, the wind mussing his hair and Harry’s stupid heart bruising itself doing swoops to get him to look. Except it’s late afternoon in Primrose Hill, Harry has a roll of mints in his pocket, and they’re not uni students anymore. 

He steps away again from the small table, putting down the paper he just bought for Ben at the newsagent’s up the street. Ben gives him a confused look and reaches out quickly to stop its flapping pages from going into his coffee. 

It doesn’t matter. The paper only cost a few quid and the coffee is probably already cold. Harry doesn't remember why they picked to sit outside, exposed to the spring weather, the heaters high up on the café walls making their faces hot and not doing much else.

Niall steps up to the pavement, skirting the jutted front wheel of the car Ben parked in his usual haphazard way, and Harry walks over to meet him. 

"Hello, Harry. It’s been a while."

There’s a sound he hasn’t heard since Niall practically fell off the face of the earth. Flew off, rather, like that little alien prince in the book Bobby used to read to them. 

Harry exhales. When they last said goodbye to each other, it was meant to be only for weeks not years. If he could just say that, get them over the bit where he's equal parts sorry and pissed off. "Niall."

"Glad you remember my name," Niall says, half laughing, his mouth drawn open into a perfect quarter moon.

"’M just surprised," Harry says, trying to keep his cool despite the thoughts bouncing in his head. "Is there a new project in the works? I didn't hear." Although he wouldn't have anyway; he doesn't keep up with company news. He did once, after he heard Niall had been in the country testing a new plane, Niall who was never around and uncontactable otherwise. It didn’t last. 

"Could be," Niall says with a careful smile, "but it's Greg's wedding anniversary on Saturday." When Harry says nothing to that, Niall adds: "You’re coming, aren’t you?"

"Oh." He wasn’t planning to even though Mum left a voicemail last week reminding him to go. He hadn’t even remembered getting an invite until his assistant looked it up in the synced calendar. It’s become a habit to put away things that might make him think of Niall. Most of the time, he doesn’t even think about why he’s done it. 

But no one told him Niall would be standing in front of him as if they chat on pavements every day, as if he never left at all and Harry never had to learn to stop caring.

"Yeah. Of course," he says, hoping the do isn't in Ireland because he has a Sunday morning flight to Japan out of Heathrow and he can’t miss it. The Japanese market was one of the few where his second album did well. His stock is still high enough there to get him an ad campaign, keep himself relevant somewhere. 

"See you Saturday then," Niall says, already moving away, the wind flicking at the collar of his trench coat as if it’s rushing him. 

"Yeah," Harry says, realising it’s too late now to decide whether to ask Niall to have coffee with them or not. "Yes. Okay. See you Saturday."

Harry walks back to the table, glancing once to see Niall disappearing down the road toward the park. He gives Ben a small shrug and sits down. "Anything interesting in the paper?"

"Old friend?" Ben dodges back, too nosy by half.

"Sort of. I mean, yeah. From ages ago. We were at uni together, but he like, dropped out second year." Harry busies himself with chopping up the foam in his cup, resists looking over again to see if Niall’s gone down towards Regent’s Park or up the hill. He didn’t even know that Niall comes into London whenever he’s in the country. Harry has spent most of his time in London instead of LA since the last album got panned and no one’s ever mentioned Niall being in town. "It's more like I knew him when we were kids. Um. Because of our—Our families basically have stakes in this one company together but …" talking about it is weird because practically no one in the industry knows about his ties to Sidwith and besides, "… we lost touch."

"Right. Okay," Ben says, as if he’s scenting a story. "Long-lost childhood sweethearts. Could be the theme for your next music video."

"God no." Just the thought of it makes Harry feel a bit sick, as if that swooping in his chest never went away. His fucking album has been stalled for over a year. He can’t even think of a music video. "Nothing like that."

"Why are you so flustered then?"

"'M not flustered," he says, looking up. "It's just, Niall’s—He’s rarely ever here. As far as I know."

"Irish, is he?" Harry raises an eyebrow and Ben laughs. “I wasn’t eavesdropping. Thought I could hear a bit of an accent when he said hi to you."

Harry lets it go because he doesn’t want it to matter. "Well, yeah, he is, but it's not that. He's just like, never here. He spends all his time in places you’d never want to go to, flying in food and water and hope for a better future or whatever."

"Right." Ben slurps his coffee. "A modern day Robert Redford?"

"What?"

" _Out of Africa_? Never mind. Before your time."

"I know _Out of Africa_. I’ve seen it before," Harry says, though what he can recall of the Robert Redford character is he hunted for sport and died in a plane crash. All Harry has ever seen Niall kill was a cockroach in the holiday house in Cornwall, and that was entirely at Harry’s vociferous bidding. "I guess he's a bit like that, but like, wherever. Wherever they need him. I don't actually know. Haven’t kept up."

"Hold on," Ben puts down his cup with a piercing clink. "Is your mate Niall … Niall Horan?" A tightness spreads all along Harry's spine. It's not shock exactly, but his mind can't come up with a reason why Ben would know who Niall is. 

“Yeah,” Harry says, hesitant.

"He was in that Netflix documentary series about war correspondents, wasn't he? The pilot who got some journos out of Aden before the airstrikes. The one who flew his plane like, extra high with an oxygen mask so he'd have enough fuel coming back with the plane loaded up," Ben says. "Fucking hell. I'd have shaken his hand if I'd known. Didn't recognise him with the blond hair."

"Never saw it, but that's him," Harry mumbles. He remembers his mother telling him years ago about Maura grudgingly accepting that her youngest grew up a nutter, an asthmatic who was happy to fly in too-thin air because less drag meant a lower fuel burn. Harry had never really listened to the list of escapades Niall was having in the great big world. Anne probably told Harry about most of them over the phone, when he was spending a lot of time in New York building his solo career. The oxygen mask story stood out, though. It made him think the next time he'd see Niall, it'd be at his funeral. "That sounds like him."

"And you know him because ..." Ben punches him on the shoulder, grinning like the time he solved the continuity in the video for _A Little Bit of Your Heart_ after locking himself up with the footage for 48 hours straight. "Mate, you never told me your family made Peregrine jets."

Harry wishes Ben actually read the Times like his father does instead of asking people to buy one for him only for the sake of keeping up with family tradition. Professor Winston wouldn’t be sitting here asking Harry about Niall or his family. He wouldn’t have even noticed Harry talking to Niall once he got stuck in. "Not something that comes up in everyday conversation, is it?"

"Mate," Ben repeats, "Peregrines."

"And?" Harry squints at him. "Why would you care?"

Ben makes a frustrated sound. "They helped us win World War Two?"

"Okay, but like, that was a long time ago,” Harry says. “It's all strictly civilian aircraft and tech now. Sidwith haven't been in the war business in decades and they have no plans to go back into it again," he totes out the standard disclaimer. He hasn't forgotten the shit he used to get at uni when he was naïve and had no sense of how the defence industry could get other students going, arguing for hours about things none of them could change. "I wasn't even born when they got rid of the Peregrines," he adds, a little snappish maybe but. He's done talking about it.

"Fair enough," Ben says, though he looks a little disappointed. He takes a bite of his cake and opens the paper at last. 

Harry looks down the road. He knows Niall is long gone. Halfway past the footy fields in Regent's Park if that's where he went. Who knows where if he crossed into St. John's Wood or up north. On Saturday, though, he'll be at his brother and sister-in-law's do. 

"It's a circus in there," Nick says, coming over with the bullet coffee he’s still drinking years past the fad. He claims it's the only way he can manage doing the Radio 1 breakfast show and function as a normal human being for the rest of the day, what with the twins starting primary last year. Harry half believes him. He's the most loyal person Harry is friends with. "What did I miss?"

"Nothing."

"That was too quick, Styles," Nick says, sitting down and losing a napkin to the wind.

Most people in the industry only know that his father is a businessman with fingers in just about every pot. Even when Harry was at the top, with millions of followers on social media and stalked in whatever city his world tour stopped for a show, no one ever dug up the details. "Because I'm quick," Harry tells Nick. Sidwith isn’t part of the life Harry built for himself and he doesn't want it to be.

Nick frowns at him, or maybe at the runaway napkin. "You're such an awful liar, Harold. It's almost like you're trying to offend people with your very obvious lying."

Harry grins and looks down at his watch. He's got to be in the City in an hour. He could go through the park, catch a cab in Marylebone going east, and still be on time. 

"Alright,” Nick puts his spoon down and pushes back on his chair. “If no one’s talking then can I tell you what a nightmare it is to book for the August holidays? It’s only March and all the good cottages are gone!"

“Mate, you are the last person I expect would go renting a cottage for August,” Ben says from behind his paper. “Don’t you have better things to do?”

“'Course I do, Winston! Do you really think my idea of a holiday is going to the middle of nowhere for a month? Lord,” Nick groans. 

“Then don’t!”

“It’s the twins,” Nick confesses. Harry relaxes back into his seat. He hasn't forgotten how Nick and Ben rarely get along, with spats that could go on for ages even though Ben lives mostly in LA, but it’s been different these past few years, ever since Nick had his kids and they’ve had something to bond over. “Somehow they’ve fallen in with a bunch of mini Thatcherites who spend every holiday sitting in seaside villages with gingham on the table and ginger biscuit ice cream all over their faces.” Nick turns to him. “Sorry, Harold. You’re probably one of these children. Sailing and riding and all that.”

“None taken. Never did any of that,” he says, though he can still see the deep blue of the Atlantic and the green of Cornwall like puzzle pieces slotting together. He can feel the warmth of the sun through the cockpit windows and Bobby smiling down at him and Niall, asking if they’d like to go for another loop round before going back to the house for a swim. Bobby always made time to come down for bits of August. Harry never thanked him for it, never thought he wouldn’t get a chance to.

“God, I know what that’s like,” Ben laughs, folding and slipping the paper in between his lap and the table. “Did I tell you about these kids mine became like, ‘besties’ with,” he air quotes, “a couple of years ago? These are proper dyed-in-the-wool Beverly Hills brats, right?” 

Harry chuckles politely as Ben launches into his story, but no one is really expecting him to listen. He’s not meant to be a sparkling conversationalist today. Ben and Nick both know he’s about to go see his father. 

He checks the time again, blinded for a second by a gust of wind whipping his hair off his shoulder and up into his face. He tucks his hair back, but the wind is winning.

Nick takes a large swill of his coffee. “I want my kids to be their own people, but I remember how hard it was to be different. They’ve already got two dads, don’t they? They’re far from being the only ones, mind, but if they want to be just like everybody else for a bit then at least I can give them a bloody cottage holiday, d’you know what I mean?” 

“Mate, I’m not saying I understand, but I don’t think that’s how you should look at it.”

They’re about to be in murky waters if Ben can’t keep his mouth shut and Nick is too tired to keep it friendly. Harry sighs, but neither Ben nor Nick notices. Might as well go, he thinks. Calm himself with a walk through the park. When he gets up and tells them, Nick asks him if he's actually about to ditch everyone – including his father – and Ben wants to know when was the last time he walked anywhere. Harry flips them the bird, pulls down his sunglasses, and sets off.

#

_2014_

Alice had told him to buy a Lonely Planet for their Easter trip to New Zealand, but all he could find was a Moon guidebook. She didn’t pick up or text back when he asked. He bought the guidebook anyway, thinking it would do and if she was fussed about it, she could go order one online. It’s for the days when they’re off grid, she’d insisted when he’d asked her why they couldn’t just use an app or an e-book or whatever. 

The stop off at Blackwell’s did get him a number from the Swedish girl at the cashier’s desk so Harry supposed it’s all right. 

He ambled up Booth Street toward the park, a little chilled in his shearling coat, which gaped open more than it should cos one of its pockets was weighted down by the book. 

A guy was moving across the lunchtime stream of pedestrians toward Harry’s side of the pavement and Harry instinctively stopped, thinking the guy was meaning to get past him too and deciding he’d let the guy go, but it was Niall, in a flight suit, trying to reach him. 

Harry hadn’t seen Niall since fresher’s week when they’d bumped into each other along the queue for student cards. He seemed taller. Bigger. Like he’d grown and maybe even bulked up a bit. Like someone Harry would casually chat up after a Stepladder gig, the adrenaline still coursing through him. 

He frowned. “Did you join the RAF?”

“No,” Niall said, eyebrows knitting even though all he sounded was amused. “'Course not. Da would kill me if I did.” 

“Oh. Are you going to like, a fancy dress party or something?” Harry asked. It’s broad daylight, but maybe Niall knew people Harry should be getting to know.

Niall laughed. “No. This is the UAS uniform.” Harry stared at him with a look he’d perfected over almost two years of uni life, surrounded by people who expected him to know all the jargon they’d picked up from their own courses. “University Air Squadron,” Niall explained.

“It suits you.” 

“Is that a pun?”

Harry made a face. He hadn’t thought of it, so, “No.”

Niall shrugged. “You always loved them puns.” His hand went up the back of his neck like a fly had just landed and needed scratching off. Harry stood watching, wondering if Niall was still pinking in the sun whenever he stood still, wondering if there was still a trail of freckles underneath where Niall’s hand was. "I should take you up flying sometime," Niall said, as if they’d been hanging out at uni all this time and it would be another one of the things they did together. They hadn’t done things together since Niall had eschewed Cornwall for racking up flying hours.

"Okay."

Niall smiled at his answer. "Let’s do it before Easter hols," he said, gesturing at the book peeking out of Harry’s pocket. “In case you decide you prefer New Zealand and don’t come back.”

Harry didn’t even bother with a reply. He pulled out his phone to start swapping numbers.

On the last week of term, he finally heard from Niall, a simple text telling him Niall had a plane waiting whenever Harry was free. 

Two days later, Harry had to sit waiting for Niall outside his share house in Failsworth for ten dreary minutes, the Mercedes Pagoda idling because he didn’t want another ticket for double parking it. The house looked okay for a butchered Victorian terrace, and there was a massive ash tree out front, but Harry liked his city centre flat more. 

Then he had to watch Niall make rude gestures and swear at a pretty brunette poking her head out one of the upstairs window and laughing at him as he rushed through the small front garden in skinny jeans and wet hair. 

Harry didn’t think he’d enjoy being in a shared house, living with people he didn’t really know, never sure when he’d be able to have a shower or who’d be touching his toothbrush. He had Alice and Johnny renting the other bedrooms in the flat off him because he did like the company, having someone to talk to before he fell into bed and finding people around when he got back from a lecture, but he’d known them forever. 

A car came up behind the Mercedes and Harry sounded the horn to get Niall moving, but Niall ignored it, his head still turned toward the upstairs window and the brunette.

There was just enough room for the other car to get by, the driver swearing at Harry even though her windows were up and he couldn’t hear her.

When Niall finally got in, he at least apologised for making Harry wait before starting on the convertible.

“This is the worst possible car to be driving here. It’s meant to rain later. We’re gonna be soaked.”

“I’ll put the top back up when we get to the airport!” Harry grumbled, getting on the M60 heading north to avoid going through the city. "I thought we’re meant to get a dry spring this year."

He’d decided to bring the car up on impulse, partly inspired by three wild days of summer temps in March, when he’d last gone down to London. It hadn’t been one of his wisest decisions. The top hadn’t come down until just the past weekend when the rains finally let up. "Anyway, this was meant to go to LA with me," he shouted over the noise of the motorway.

"Why did you stay here? I thought you were gonna go off to California for uni."

Harry took his sunglasses off the top of his head and put them back on over his eyes. He couldn’t remember if he’d told Niall about California or if Niall had heard from his mum, who would’ve heard from Harry’s own mum. The Sidwith mum network stayed strong after the Horan and Styles divorces, and even after their kids stopped spending Augusts together. “They drive on the wrong side of the road there. Couldn’t get used to it.”

Niall shook his head, smiling. He rested an arm on the passenger side door and asked Harry about his course.

Harry only knew the entrance to City Airport and hadn’t bothered looking anything up. When they got to Barton, Niall told him to look for a sign for the Aerodrome once they could see some buildings along the airfield again, but Harry got distracted by Niall’s story about going round dressed up as a footy team with his mates for Halloween. He had to make a somewhat illegal U-turn on the dual carriageway to get back to it, Niall’s laughter doubling in volume. Harry had forgotten how good it was to hear, how it was the sort that would probably make a laugh track bearable.

The road into the airfield ended along a set of single-storey prefab buildings facing a grassy field where almost a dozen prop planes sat in two neat rows, one on the green and the other on the tarmac. He could see a sign for a flight school and the aerodrome office, a small carpark, and parking spots along the weathered picket fence that bordered the field. In the distance, a jet cleared the main airport runway, its engines roaring.

Niall jumped out of the car, striding off into the office to get them signed in, and Harry parked by a gap in the fence where a few of the pickets had come loose and gone sideways, barely clinging on.

He gazed at the planes, half wondering which would be theirs for the hour. He had the thought that a few of them looked too old for Niall to know how to fly them, but it was stupid thing to be thinking. The Pagoda was a vintage car and he was driving it around just fine. He got out and started putting the car’s top on in case it did start to rain when they're up in the air.

Niall returned with a form for him to sign and walked off before Harry could read what was on it.

“Hold on,” he shouted. “I didn’t even get a look.”

“Then why did you sign it?” Niall replied, disappearing into the building.

Harry shrugged to the weeds tipped with yellow buds by his left foot and went back to making sure the fabric bead of the soft top was snug all along his windshield header.

“All done?” Niall asked, already waiting for him on the other side of the fence when he locked up the car.

Harry nodded and took in the leather gloves in Niall’s hand. The burgundy skin was creased with wear but it shined deeply and Harry would bet all the money in his trust that the palms of them were almost black.

“Cross over then,” Niall said, eyes not quite meeting Harry’s, and turned around to start walking, tucking the gloves into one of his back pockets.

“Which plane are we using?” Harry asked when he caught up, the trimmed grass slippery under his boots.

“The one at the end there.”

His jaw dropped. “You can fly twin-engines now?” 

The plane was beautiful. Unmistakably a Sidwith Aquila with its sleek sixties lines, almost fishlike along the top of the body and tail, and underneath, the pregnant belly smoothing out to a fat white nose gleaming in the sun. 

“Don’t sound so surprised.”

Harry stopped well away, watching Niall go up to the plane and stroke its side, as if she were an animal he had to gentle before she and Harry were introduced. It was a bit idiotic when he thought about it later, but he was getting a semi just looking at her so maybe a gentling wasn’t out of place.

“Did Bobby give her to you?”

Niall laughed even though it’s a fair question. Des had let Harry pick the Pagoda for his eighteenth birthday, but an Aquila probably cost ten times as much and Niall’s father didn’t believe in his sons getting things just because they wanted them.

“I helped test this model.” Niall said, moving toward the tail, already preflighting. “Enough flying hours to count for a down payment, I’d say.”

Harry went round the other way to help remove the tie-downs. He knew how to do that at least. A good thing he did because they were all Niall would let him touch.

Defiantly, Harry followed him around the plane, not wanting to be the first to get in. Protocol, maybe. Or nerves. Or the sheer pleasure of watching Niall test the ailerons and the vents, the wings and the fuel, his hands moving easily from hinge to cap to tube, broad palms obscuring Harry’s line of vision. Niall glanced up and over his shoulder a couple of times, a small smile on his face, and Harry had to step back, give him room. 

Harry decided to busy himself with taking photos to avoid a third time. He was choosing a filter for a shot near the nose up into the cockpit when a guy stopped by and said to Niall that the plane was a beauty.

"She is," Niall replied, the dimple popping up on his left cheek. “Six-hundred horsepower. Climbs eighteen-hundred feet a minute when you do it right.”

"You sure the paint's dry though?"

"You fecker. You saw me take her up yesterday. Didn’t drip any on you, did I?"

The joker – a friend maybe, because Harry had never known Niall not to have friends everywhere he went – said something about how to get an Aquila on discount. Niall laughed again, gently moving him on with a shove to his shoulder.

When Harry was climbing up onto the wing to follow Niall into the cockpit, he noticed the guy watching them from the steps going up into the office and waved. The guy didn’t wave back. 

The cockpit was roomy, with a flash Garmin panel and tall leather seats. Whoever had kitted out the plane for Niall must’ve loved him, or trusted him enough not to wreck it. 

Harry had to sit up straight, though, to be able to look over the panel and out the glass windows at whatever was ahead. “Can you see?”

“Yes,” Niall replied, clearly having had the question posed to him before, maybe seriously instead of as a joke. “The plane’s nose up at the moment, innit? It’ll be nose down when we’re in the air.”

“What about the taxi?”

Niall’s eyes flashed. “Christ, Harry. I’m only a couple of inches shorter than you,” he said. “'Sides, the screen in front of you is for virtual vision.” 

“It was a joke, Niall.” They’d taken the piss out of each other all the time. They’d been idiots together about everything. 

Niall put a hand on his shoulder and Harry felt himself wanting to lean into his touch. “You need help with your buckles? The straps might be a bit short for you. You can make them longer if you need to.”

Harry told him to fuck off. He’d gained a bit of weight in the winter, but he was still growing. Niall grinned and went back to his clipboard.

“How many flying hours d’you have now? Just asking, not like, judging.”

“Solo?”

“Yeah.”

“Dunno,” Niall shrugged. “Hit two thousand last year, though.”

“That’s amazing.” And it would explain why Harry hadn’t seen him around at all. 

“Your headset,” Niall said, putting his on and starting the engines after Harry did the same. 

The black scimitar blades spun like claws around the aluminium hub, looking fucking deadly, but the whirr of the propellers steadied to a noise seemingly no higher than the 60 cycle hum his band’s rig used to make when Johnny’s mum had the microwave on in the kitchen.

Niall turned on the radio with the press of a gloved finger and Harry watched him jot down the airport's weather info, his head tilted absently, his pink mouth slack as he listened to the recording, the loops and circle dots of his writing at least still how Harry expected them to be. 

As they taxied and started picking up speed along the runway after getting clearance, Harry had to remind himself that Niall had started flying at fourteen, that there were enough open spaces around Manchester if they needed to do a field landing, and there was a lot that could be fixed with plastic surgery if they ended up getting burnt in an engine fire.

When they left ground, Niall kept one gloved hand on the throttles until he raised the gear. "There we go," Harry thought Niall said, his voice only as loud as the engines even through the headset. He moved his other hand from the gear switch to the prop controls, gently taking them up, smiling to himself and then at Harry. "You alright?"

"Yeah," Harry said, watching the sky change as they went higher but really wanting another look at Niall's competent hands, the leather of the gloves taut and rich with shine on the backs of them. He shouldn’t, though. It’s just the adrenaline fucking with his head. 

Manchester looked like a shrinking grey box against the deep greens of the countryside and Harry leaned closer to the glass. He wasn’t the best at figuring out what was what down on the ground, but the sea was to the west and Holmes Chapel would be a bit to the south. 

"When we’re well away from City, I’m going to take her up on a steep climb so we can make a nice stall turn. Not like, mad vertical like at the air shows cos I’d get definitely kicked out of the squadron if they catch me doing that with a passenger, but it’s still gonna be fun. It's gonna feel like we're falling. Well, we will be falling, but only for a sec."

"What?" Harry whipped his head round, not screeching.

"Just letting you know so you don't think the engines cut off. The drop's gonna be a bit obvious in one of these."

"'Wish you'd just done it and not told me!"

"The anticipation is part of the fun, innit?"

"No!"

Niall glanced at him. "Are you actually nervous or just being you?"

Harry ignored the dig. "’M neither! We've only been in the air two minutes. Next you're gonna tell me we'll be doing barrel rolls."

"On the way back, yeah?" Niall said. 

Harry blanched.

"Look at your face," Niall cackled. "No, Harry. We're not doing barrel rolls today. I don’t have time to clean up any sick. I’ve got a seminar at three." 

Harry didn’t remember Niall ever being a cocky git. “Keep it up and you’re not getting a ride back from me.”

"You loved it, though, didn't you, whenever Bobby took us up over Penwith and did little swoops along the shore? You always screeched my ears off, but I thought it was 'cause you loved it."

"Haven't been in a prop plane in years,” Harry said quietly, looking straight ahead. His last outing had been an aborted flying lesson followed by a two-hour lecture from his father. He’d lost interest quickly after that. 

“I didn’t know. I thought—Well. I dunno. I suppose it’s been a while.”

“First time being your passenger too."

"Hey. Harry. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do," Niall said gently.

Harry started to giggle in the silence. “That sounds like a line from a bad porno.”

Niall made a wet exasperated sound, half giggling himself.

“No, let’s do it,” Harry said. “If I break a few limbs I’ll have more time to study for exams.”

“If we get hurt, it would be more than—”

Harry made a shushing sound.

“We’re not gonna get hurt,” Niall said and started them on another climb. Harry watched his steady hands, the looseness of his shoulders, the confident set of his jaw, and somehow still believed otherwise. 

"We're coming up to it now. You okay?"

Harry nodded, his body pressed into his seat. They’re so small, he thought, and there was so much sky all around them.

"Here it is. Easy. Close your eyes and just feel it."

He did as told. They're frozen for a moment, suspended in nothing but slow air, the lack stirring something hot and sharp deep in his belly. He could feel them dropping into a bank and a loud honk spilled sideways out of him, his skin thrumming with it, the plane picking up speed again as it fell. He opened his eyes, wanting to see Niall in the rush, the laughter Harry could hear promising bright blue eyes.

"Liked that, didn’t you," Niall said as their eyes met, the colours in his seeming as if they’d been broken and put together again. 

The earth and sky were still tilted behind him and Harry felt a wilder feeling rising. He wasn’t sure what he was laughing about anymore. In the cockpit glass behind Niall’s head, Harry could see himself at thirteen and ugly in his glasses that last August in Cornwall, Niall chattering away about his upcoming pilot lessons, golden as the sun. 

“I think I’m high, Niall. Literally and like, adrenalinally.”

Niall smiled, looking away, the plane levelling under his hands as they exited the arc of the turn. 

“I’m serious.”

“I know.”

Harry breathed out the rush, soothed by Niall’s focus on the instruments as he checked the vertical nav and brought them a bit lower to fly straight toward the Irish Sea.

“We should go visit Bobby,” Harry said. “Jump out, say hi, and fly back in time for your seminar.”

Niall ignored him. "Why didn't you go to America?" he asked.

"The band. Stepladder, the band I started at school," Harry said, without the embarrassment he usually felt whenever he rued his decision. "No one wanted to like, move to the States with me."

Niall laughed. "You asked them?"

"It was all we talked about in sixth form."

"Saw you play at the Castle last year. Pretty sick set."

It was the gig that had felt like a huge win, like a moment they’d always look back on even after bigger things – a record deal, a headlining tour – they hadn’t achieved yet. Harry still remembered the couple in the audience he’d hooked up with afterwards, Alice asking him if he was also going to be precocious about fucking like a rock star. "I didn't know you were there," he said.

Niall shrugged, watching the screen. "I might take us up higher. It's supposably bumpy up ahead."

Harry wondered whether he should ask the question that had been on his mind on and off since they'd ran into each other and exchanged numbers. "Niall, why haven't we hung out? We've been at the same uni for almost two years."

"I'm always up here. You're always down there."

"We could use the radio," Harry says, tapping at his headset. 

"Yeah. Turned out so well for you, that."

He would’ve felt flattered that Niall remembered the story except Niall probably did think it had been dumb, getting grounded because of having too much fun serenading the airfield. Bobby had made Harry assume all pilots were really cool, but some weren’t, especially his second flight instructor.

"I didn't take to flying the way you did."

Niall was quiet for a while. "I don't remember ever not knowing it now. I know I wasn't born flying, but—" He was smiling but when he glanced over and their eyes met again, he looked a bit sad. "It feels like maybe I was always like this, like it was always going to be this way." He adjusted the mic on his headset even though Harry could hear him clearly. "You?"

"The music, I guess," Harry finally said after looking out the window, down at the ribbon of coast below. It wasn't that he hadn't known the answer. He lived and breathed it most days, writing songs and rehearsing them. But he always told everyone that he was in a band just for hell of it. That the music was a bit of a lark, something easy to do and brilliant for pulling hot people. He'd never wanted to seem too keen, like he'd be devastated if it was taken away from him. It’s Niall, though, and Harry couldn’t think of a thing he’d ever kept from him.

"It’s kind of like, amazing," he confessed, slowly feeling nine years old again, his knees almost touching Niall’s under blankets that smelled like the sea. He could whisper anything – how he felt about his stupid parents' divorce, where he got his first kiss, the people he didn't actually like at school – and Niall would hold his secret safe. "It’s amazing when I'm on stage and I can see people dancing to our songs. When they know the lyrics like, sometimes I can tell they're waiting for a specific part or line cos then their faces change, because that's the part they want to sing out loud the most."

“'S that what you wanna do?”

“'Think so,” Harry said. “You?”

“Dunno. This, I suppose. Maybe work for the company. Can’t be testing planes all day every day, but I could do other stuff too. Learn the job from my da.” 

Harry smiled. Des had spun Styles money into other businesses, building himself a small empire in the process, but Sidwith was it for Bobby. He lived and breathed planes. Harry could see Niall living that life too, side by side with the person he loved most in the world, doing the job he loved most in the world. 

“Nice steady job. Pleasant working conditions. Good prospects,” he listed. “That means you’ll always have money to buy my albums, won’t you?” 

“If they’re any good.”

“Thank you, Niall. Thank you very much.”

In the hour or so that they were gone, the Pagoda had stayed dry but the wind had also picked up. Harry left the top on, thinking of how snug the plane had felt. 

"What I said up there,” Niall started, chewing the side of his thumb, “that's just between us, Harry."

Harry, unsure about where Niall was coming from, raised his eyebrows dramatically. "'Course. Who'd I tell anyway?"

Niall scratched the back of his neck, quiet.

"I don't think anyone's gonna be surprised about you wanting to follow your dad into the business,” Harry tried, taking them off the motorway. “Flying's in your blood. You and Bobby always have a great time together. It'd be like, fun to go to work every day."

“Could be,” Niall said lightly.

There was a stretch of empty spots along Niall’s street. Harry parked and got out of the car to walk Niall up to his house. It seemed the thing to do after Niall had detoured for a Holmes Chapel flyby on the way back to Barton.

"What are you up to tonight?" Harry asked, his waist brushing the lopsided hedge that bordered Niall’s garden.

"I’ve got my German mock orals tomorrow."

"You should come out,” Harry said, rocking on his heels. “Like, when you're done."

Niall chuckles, stepping closer to the knee-high gate, eyes flitting from one thing to another. "Yeah. Not tonight."

Harry wanted to say they should meet up after Niall’s orals, but he didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. “Okay. Well. That was nice,” he said. “The flying and um, catching up.” 

“It was.”

“Let me know when you wanna meet up.”

"Will do. Soon as I'm done with my stuff."

Harry nodded. It was the perfect time to go so he went in for a goodbye hug. He ended up zigzagging into it, though, because Niall kind of had his hand out, like for a handshake. They found themselves loosely in each other’s arms, faces up close, Harry's hand on Niall's shoulder to catch his balance and the other one on his back for really no reason at all. Niall’s mouth had gaped open, his eyebrows raised in surprise. 

For a moment all they did was stare at each other, the only sound between them the rustling of the ash leaves overhead. Harry had the sudden urge to tip his head and kiss Niall except his lips were dry and he could smell his breath, sour from all the nerves earlier. He was going for Niall’s forehead instead, like a complete weirdo, when Niall just pulled him in closer, and then they're properly hugging, a laugh trapped between them.

In New Zealand, Alice convinced the rest of the band and almost everyone else in tow that they should go off the grid on a five-day hike. Harry drew the line at foraging and stuffed as much food as he could fit into all their rucksacks.

When they got back to Queenstown, dead tired, heaving with new bits of songs, his phone screamed and screamed at him. 

Bobby was dead. Bad weather, a chemical spill from a lorry, a multi-vehicle collision on the foggy backroads between Dublin and his place up by the lakes. 

Harry ignored the rest of the texts and tried to call Niall even though he couldn’t really see, couldn’t stop the tears to see. 

He couldn’t get through. 

Alice and Johnny tucked him into bed and got in touch with his mum to arrange a trip back. 

It took thirty-two hours to get to Ireland, even with Sidwith planes waiting for him in Sydney and Dubai. He didn’t make it in time for the funeral.

Only Greg and Bobby’s family were still at the house in Mullingar and Harry still hadn’t got a hold of Niall, but Maura met him and his mum in Dublin. When he asked her about Niall, she told him Niall needed time alone. There was a steeliness across her face that also seemed to beg for kindness. His mum texted from her spot next to Maura in the back seat, telling him he shouldn’t ask again. 

They drove out silently to the grave just over the borders of County Westmeath.

The day was bright, the hills going in turns green and gold, the machine-carved headstones watched over by an ancient monastery from where it stood up high, next to the old part of the cemetery. 

Harry couldn’t remember when he'd last told Bobby he loved him. Maybe that final summer in Cornwall, when he and Niall had gotten Bobby all to themselves for a whole week.

He’d promised himself he wouldn’t cry, but he did. There was nothing else he could do.

“It had to be a closed casket service,” Maura said, neatening the flowers someone had left on the dirt. “This is much better, don't you think? It’s better to see him here.”

“You mean in the ground?”

His mum tugged on his wrist, bare because he’d grown again and his suits and shirts were all a bit short.

“He used to say he’d like a sky burial,” Maura told them, gazing at the temporary grave marker, a silver plaque with Bobby’s name and years glinting in the sun. “They do those somewhere in the Himalayas. Have your body get taken up into the air by the birds. I thought it sounded lovely until I read that being taken up meant being eaten.” She laughed softly. “But that’s Bobby. And now the worms will do it, and then the birds. So he’ll be up in the sky soon enough.”

“Fucking hell, Maura.”

“Harry!”

Maura’s shoulders twitched into a shrug that Harry had thought was all Niall. It made her seem young again, like the woman who’d stood next to Bobby as he’d pored over sheets full of drawings, amused. “I told Niall, it’s all right if you want to cry because you miss him, but don’t cry because he’s gone.”

“How is he?” Harry couldn’t stop himself from asking. He’d wiped his nose with a hanky at least instead of the back of his hand like at Granny’s funeral.

“No surprise, he’s taken it the hardest. But you’ll check up on him for me when term starts, won’t you, Harry?” 

His mum stared at him warningly and Harry nodded, sniffling. “Of course.” He had Niall’s number. He didn’t need to wait until term started.

But when he’d waited as long as he could, Niall’s number was out of service. 

He went for a long run, packed all the uni books he’d brought down to his mum’s, and drove back to Manchester without telling anyone. His mum sent him a few texts and left a voicemail asking if he was okay, but he only sent a text back saying he had group revisions he’d forgotten about. It felt like he was carrying an ugly furious thing on his back and he didn’t want her to catch hold of it because it was all he had left. 

On the day before term started, he went to Niall’s share house. The garden gate was open underneath the shadow of the ash tree, creaking softly in the breeze, and a bicycle lay flat on the grass with its front tyre missing. 

No one came to the door when he rang the bell, not even after he did it a second and a third time.

He went round the back, stopping when he saw an overgrown thorny plant. One of Niall's stories on the way to the airfield had been about how, climbing up from outside to get into his room because he'd been locked out and desperate for a shit, he’d gotten seriously scratched up by a rose bush. 

Harry looked closer and spotted a few rosebuds, so pale they were almost white, their tips shrivelled, as if they’d come out too early for anyone to save them. The lone window above was completely shut, its blinds down.

In the back garden, there was a faint smell of boiling peas. He noticed steam rising over the pot on the cooker in the galley kitchen and knocked. 

No one answered when he called out. 

His hand was on the rusty doorknob, about to try the door, when it seemed to him that trying the front door would be more polite somehow.

The front door was unlocked. Again, though, no answer when he shouted into the hallway.

He had to skip over a few pairs of manky runners and sports carryalls, sliding across the laminate flooring after tripping on one of the soiled handles. The house was an ugly, messy place, he thought, and immediately felt like a horrible person. If Bobby had ever seen Harry’s flat, he’d probably have said it was too much for a uni student to have. Mum had bought it without Harry wanting her to, but he also hadn’t told her to return it.

Harry called out again as he went up to the first floor. There had to be someone in the house, but maybe whomever Niall lived with were also mad enough to leave the house empty with the cooker on. He hoped it hadn’t been Niall.

He stood, one hand gripping the doorframe, all his thoughts mashed up into a blackness. The corner bedroom he thought would be Niall’s was completely bare.

He didn't know how long he'd been staring into the room when someone came up the stairs and asked who he was.

"Harry. Harry Styles," he said automatically, extending his hand. She wasn't the brunette in the window. He wondered how many brunettes Niall lived with.

She glared at him and took his hand, briefly, like he shouldn't have offered it in the first place. "Are you here for the room? This is it, but you should've told someone you were coming." She let out a long-suffering sigh. "Or did you tell Andy?"

"Um, no. I'm looking for Niall."

"Niall's gone," she told him, eyebrows furrowed. "This room was his."

“What d’you mean he’s gone? Where did he go?” 

“I don't know. He didn't even come back after his dad's funeral. Someone else came to clear the room."

She wasn’t making any sense. "But he's still here, isn't he? He's got exams like the rest of us."

"No, he's left. You know, uni, and Manchester. Like, for good."

"He couldn't have just left. He wouldn't have left without telling you. He wouldn't like, leave. He wouldn't just walk away from like, whatever." He wished she'd stop looking at him like that. He wasn’t the best abstract thinker, not on his feet. "He wouldn't default on the rent," he added. "And he's got exams and stuff."

She stepped back, looking at him like he was some kind of weirdo. "He's paid up through the year. if you must know. We just don't have enough for the electric and water. You a friend or ..." She was quiet for a moment. "His dad died, you know."

"I know," he wanted to shout but half-whispered instead. Something sharp was twisting all along his back. "Do you have his number? The one I have isn’t working."

“Yeah.” She took out a phone and rattled off a number.

When Harry pressed call, Niall’s contacts entry in his phone came onscreen. It’s the same number he had, the one that wasn't working anymore.

Harry scrolled down his list to call Maura, and stopped himself. He drove straight out to the Aerodrome after he left the house, but there was no trace of Niall there either. The Aquila was gone too, and Harry hated the part of his brain that started to imagine it spiriting Niall away, probably when Harry had holed up in Holmes Chapel, soaking his EU Law textbooks with hot tea, snot, and tears.

Weeks passed and he accepted with swinging degrees of hurt and resentment that Niall wouldn't be getting in touch, not even just to say he was pulling through okay. All Harry had left was the text telling him Niall had a plane waiting whenever he was free.

In the winter, Parlophone signed Stepladder on a five-album deal. Miraculously, they all stayed on at uni and managed to get their degrees when they were cutting their EP, which got them two hit singles even in the States. 

_Fuck your plane, I’m busy,_ he thought one night on stage somewhere on their first North American tour, when he’d already lost Niall’s text too, along with the phone. 

The band stayed together for two albums and three years, parting a little less than amicably not long after magazines started wanting only Harry on their covers. He went solo with XL, weighted down by the breakup but having a fucking brilliant time of it anyway, for a good long while.

#

Traffic into the City is predictably shit. Harry can’t remember the last time he was so late, having gotten lost in the park somewhere between the sports ovals and the boating pond even after looking up his location. He calls the office when they’re past the Old Street roundabout, the cabbie heading south to avoid the Shoreditch bottleneck.

A big guy from Security is waiting for him when he gets to the Bury Street entrance of the office tower. He’s whisked through the gates and delivered to the lift, the guy hitting all the buttons for him after some complicated thumbprint-fu, during which Harry learns his name is Noah and he’s got a baby due in June. The doors open on the private floor and one of his father’s PAs is standing an arm’s length away, her green suit matching the greys on the walls.

“Hi, Sylvie.” 

“Hello, Harry. You look well.”

“Thank you. So do you. I like your brooch.”

“There’s coffee waiting in Des’ office. Can I get you anything else? Juice, something to eat?”

“No,” he shakes his head. “Thank you.”

He runs the gauntlet of assistants’ desks before depositing himself in one of the low armchairs in his father’s office, the tray of coffee things and a plate of biscotti dipped in pale blond chocolate within easy reach. The coffee is plain and strong. He drinks two steaming cups of it, staring across the white sky toward the murky Thames.

His father comes in with a leather folder in his hand, the doors closing behind him. It’s freezing, but he doesn’t even have his suit jacket on.

“Well? What’s this I hear about you running out of money again?”

Harry has been expecting that the summons will be about his finances. Des doesn’t care about anything else to do with him. 

He puts the cup and saucer down on the floor. “I didn’t. I haven’t.”

“We sold a piece of your trust so you could pay back those bastards at Parlophone, not so you could take the cash and spend it.” Des drops the folder onto his desk. “Pour me a cup, will you? Damned heating is acting up again. Two sugars – brown.”

“I haven’t touched it,” Harry mutters, sitting up to reach the coffee pot, his face two fleshy bags and a frown on its polished surface. “I didn’t touch it five years ago except to pay them back and I haven’t touched it since.”

“What do you owe Beggars Group now?”

“Nothing?” 

“You must be building up something with XL. Studio hours. Staffing. Gemma told me you’ve been at this album for a year now.”

He chucks two lumps of sugar into the cup. “The tour made enough. I’m still in the black.”

“That was three years ago and your second album brought in losses,” his father says in that matter-of-fact way of his that still feels like stab to the gut. 

“It made enough,” Harry insists. When Stepladder broke up, everyone owed Parlophone a ridiculous amount of money because they’d gotten a five-album deal with an advance to match and they’d been stupid enough to piss it all away while racking up a lot of fees. Harry has been careful ever since, at least when it comes to dealings with his record company.

“When do you go on the next one?”

“I have to have an album to tour first.” 

Des takes the coffee. “Best get to it, hadn’t you? Though, to be frank with you, Harry, I don’t quite see why it’s taking so long if you’ve got other songwriters working with you.” 

“Dad,” Harry laughs, taken aback, “you don’t know the first thing about making music.”

“I know your accountant thinks you’re about to have money problems again.”

“If he’s my accountant, why is he reporting to you?” Harry takes his phone off the table and gets on his feet. “It’s none of your business, but I’ve put money into my house in LA. It’s going on the market in the summer.”

“Good. That house has been nothing but a money pit.”

“I’m not selling it,” he says, fists clenching in the pockets of his coat. “I’m just renting it out.”

“I see. How much of the rent you _might_ get will cover the renovations or whatever it is you’ve decided to do to the place?”

He turns for the doors. “I’ll let you know when I get it.”

“Wait,” his father says. 

“What?” he says over his shoulder.

“You’ll give Greg and Denise my congratulations this weekend, won’t you? Well, Gemma won’t forget anyway.”

Harry pivots on one foot even as he tells himself he shouldn’t. “What’s so bloody important about this party?” he asks. “I wasn’t even at the wedding!”

The door opens, another one of Des’ PAs ducking her head under his glare. “Sir, your four o’clock is here.”

“Bring more coffee, will you, Hannah?” Des says. “Bill, is that you out there?” he calls out, walking past Harry.

“Desmond, how are you?” A man – a perfect specimen of the American WASP from his skiing tan down to his sports jacket and loafers – walks in to embrace his father. 

Des replies with niceties that suit him about as much as dark-wash jeans would, which tells Harry he considers his four o’clock a friend. Deadly courtesy has always come more naturally to him.

“You remember my son, don’t you, Bill?”

Bill turns intelligent grey eyes onto Harry, smiling broadly. “How could I not? I’m sure there’s still a cardboard cut-out of him somewhere in my Watch Hill house. The twins tried to take everything they had to college – that’s university to you folks – but we told them they could only bring what would fit in the car.” 

Harry makes a polite noise of embarrassment.

“A pleasure to see you again, Harry. How long has it been? Must be twenty years now. You must have been about this tall,” Bill adds, raising a hand up to hip level.

“Pleasure to see you again too, sir,” Harry takes his hand and shakes it.

“Please. It’s Bill.”

“Tell Greg I’ll see him when I’m back from Hong Kong,” Des says, patting Harry’s forearm as if the American joviality was contagious. “Harry is off to Greg Horan’s wedding anniversary this weekend,” his father explains, glancing at his friend.

“Ah,” Bill nods. “Yes. Nice young family. Please pass on my congratulations.”

Harry wonders what Greg will say when Harry tells him he’s got good wishes to pass on from an American bloke called Bill, yay tall and yay wide, wears his silver hair in a Caesar cut. 

“Gemma and Harry and the Horan boys used to spend summers together when they were children. Harry and Niall, the younger brother, were inseparable.” 

“Ah. Niall. He was very close to his father, I hear. Didn’t quite recover from the loss.”

Harry doesn’t know if Bill is talking to him or to his father. _I just saw him and he looks fine_ doesn’t seem the thing to say, but Bill is painting a picture Harry can’t believe in. They've both made it through. They've survived, and now Niall has stepped back into his life again.

He tastes his coffee rising back up and uses an arm to hide his coughing. 

“We all miss him,” Des says, sparing Harry an impassive glance. “No doubt his absence makes attending these family celebrations all the more important. It’s how we remember him, how we pass on our love for him to his children.” He sighs, shaking his head. “If I didn’t have to be in Hong Kong for the Hang Seng talks, I would absolutely be there. As it is, Harry here will have to be there for me.”

“Gemma, you mean,” Harry mumbles into his sleeve, unthinking.

“What’s that?”

Harry sniffs. “I’m not going for you, Dad. I’m going for myself,” he says, pulling mints out of his pockets to stuff them into his mouth.

#

Gemma, Mum, and Robin have made a mini-break out of the party, staying at the venue all weekend. Harry drives down to Surrey on Saturday afternoon, thinking he’d rather skip the luncheon and the melodramatic speeches.

The manor house is a little ostentatious, but the hotel looks like it’s doing good business. There’s a quiet gleam to all the brass fittings and polished wood, and the staff are flitting about as if they’re used to the bustle. 

He gives his invitation to the people outside the banqueting hall, sparse with guests now even with the bar open, the tables still only half-cleared, its French doors open to a large terrace. 

The music is loud enough for dancing, but everyone is mostly milling about. He doesn’t see his family and there’s no one he recognises. 

He picks up a glass of champagne and drinks it down in three gulps, scanning the crowd and feeling like he might be dressed in too much black for the Home Counties. It’s a sunny day, at least, and there’s hardly a breeze. His fedora is in no danger of being blown away and having his shirt only half buttoned up feels good.

“Are you Harry Styles?” 

He turns and finds a young girl with long hair smiling up at him. 

“Yeah. Hi,” he smiles back.

“I love your album. _H_? The first one?” the girl says.

“Ah. Yeah. Thank you.” He can see she’s not going to say anything about the second. He feels for his phone. “Excuse me. I have to take this,” he says, and moves away. 

_Where are you_

_Little girls room_ his sister replies.

He can see Greg at the centre of the crowd and someone who is likely his wife, Denise. People are clearly giving them more attention than others. 

“Harry, what a surprise,” Greg says, shaking his hand and thumping his back. “Thanks for coming, mate.” There’s a tightness to him, as if he hasn’t forgotten Harry gave him the shits one summer when he switched Niall’s pain pills with laxatives after catching Greg stealing a few.

“Congratulations. Thanks for inviting me.”

“Thank you. Jesus. I haven’t seen you in a while. What you up to—Oh, Denise, Harry’s here.”

If she’s thinking they’ve actually never met before, she’s not showing it. 

“Bill sends his regards, by the way,” Harry says to Greg after complimenting Denise on her dress. 

Greg gives him a blank look.

Harry thinks about describing the guy, but not knowing his last name seems a bit stupid instead of funny now. “My dad’s friend, Bill. He asked me to give you his congratulations.”

“Oh,” Greg laughs. He looks incredibly pleased, his shoulders relaxing. “Thanks, mate. I’ll give him a shout.”

“Cool,” Harry says, and makes a bit of small talk about the party until someone else pops up to congratulate them.

He walks around the periphery of the terrace and finds the balustrades ending at a set of wide steps leading down to a formal lawn, even more full of guests. 

There’s a game of croquet neatly laid out at the edge before the sprawling lawn gives way to an informal garden, its ornamental bushes shaped like figure-eights already in bloom, a set of tiny cottages tucked into its far end.

Niall is playing, or holding a mallet in front of one of the hoops at least, one hand tucked into his trouser pocket. Harry approves of his striped shirt and tie, and the pretty pair of brogues. He looks smart, like he’s about to go and sign off on important things. Harry stands on the lower steps, wondering how long Niall is going to be around for, wondering if today is again the last day and when Harry gets back from Japan, Niall will be gone again.

It’s stupid but if Niall were to ask him, he might just follow. Go see the world for a bit. Sit in a prop plane and fly with him.

Niall has a pair of sunglasses on, but when he raises his hand, Harry knows Niall is waving a hello at him. He gives the mallet to someone without seeing he’s almost jabbed the guy in the balls and walks over.

Harry goes down to meet him, his strides feeling too short. They meet almost halfway and he’s pulled into a tight hug. It’s a hug he used to dream about, years ago. He wants to say he’s sorry Bobby’s dead even though it’s ridiculously off-topic and much too late. He wants to say he didn’t think he’d miss Niall so much.

A kiss to his cheek, Niall’s sunglasses bumping his, wakes him up. “Sorry,” Niall chuckles. “It’s good to see you.” 

“You too,” Harry says, clutching Niall’s back for a second before letting go. 

Niall fixes his tie even though it looks perfectly fine. “Seen your family yet?”

Anne shakes her head at Harry’s outfit, tearing up, clearly under the influence of sentimental anniversary dross and champagne cocktails. Niall puts an arm around her. “Come on, Anne. Not ten minutes ago you were telling me I’m still your little cherub. We haven’t grown up so fast now, have we?” 

Harry would join in to comfort his mum except Niall is so gentle with her, not an ounce of irony or cheek in his voice, and she’s smiling so tenderly at him. 

The sun is warm on Harry’s chest and face, like it’s already summer again even though it’s not, like there’s a spell the silence is holding up. He waits for his mum to break it.

“It’s nice to have everyone together again, isn’t it? I can’t believe it’s their tenth anniversary,” she says, glancing up toward the terrace. “It feels like the wedding was just yesterday. You and Bobby dancing, your quiff styled up to here.”

Niall lets out an embarrassed groan, making to grab the hand she’s holding high above her head.

“I haven’t said hi to Maura yet,” Harry says, in case Niall enjoys reliving bad hair moments just as much as he does. Besides, if Anne keeps talking about Bobby, she’s likely to go into a full-on cry about it. 

Maura gives him a gentle hug when they find her at one of the tables set out on the lawn. 

Niall goes to fetch her another half pint while she introduces Harry to her husband. Chris seems a nice man. Harry didn’t expect him to be English or that he and Niall would be on good terms, but he is and they are.

“Where’s the little sprog?”

“Sleeping upstairs,” Maura tells Niall, thanking him for the drink.

“Theo,” Niall says to Harry. “Greg and Denise’s son.”

“You’re an uncle.”

“I am.” 

Niall is smiling widely, the corners of his mouth like tiny dips meant for licking.

Fuck.

“Um, that’s really cool,” Harry says in lieu of other things. “Congratulations. Maura, I didn't know you’re a grandma.”

But Maura is already laughing with another guest, the sleek feathers of their fascinators throwing sunlight all over the place, and it’s just him and Niall standing there, squinting at each other.

Harry sniffs. He drank that champagne too quickly. “I think I need a drink. Like, water.” 

“Your hay fever?”

Niall shouldn’t remember. Harry hates it that Niall remembers. He feels like he’s under siege. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“Come on, let’s get you some water,” Niall says, turning Harry around with a hand around his waist and leading him to the makeshift bar, the hand now on the small of Harry’s back. 

In the noise, Niall introduces relatives of his from Australia to Harry, who drinks his water listening to them reminisce about visiting Niall in Botswana, hiking in the hills around Gaborone and going for curry after.

Harry can’t tell if Niall still lives there or not. He wants to ask, but he doesn’t want to be even more the odd one out. 

“Best Nando’s in Africa,” Niall tells him.

“The right amount of piri piri salt?”

Niall flashes a grin at him and Harry tries to focus on how Niall never invited him for a visit. It doesn’t work. “Perfect amount. Can’t ask for better.”

“Maybe I’ll go.”

“I’ve still got mates down there. Good people,” Niall says. “Or maybe I’ll show you around. Make a trip of it,” he adds, rubbing his neck.

“Yea, but if he tells you he’ll fly you over the game reserves, say no, Harry. Just say no.”

“Come on,” Niall turns and laughs.

“We almost died!”

“Are you still saying that to everyone you meet? Deo, lad, it was only your first bush landing.”

Niall’s cousin makes a face, his eyes bugging, and Harry excuses himself to get a glass of white. 

He feels a hand on his shoulder when he’s having his first sip. It’s Niall, like he just can’t get enough of Harry in existential panic.

They end up sitting at one of the tables on the lawn. Niall with a pint in front of him and Harry his wine. 

"Let me see that hand," Niall says, gesturing to Harry’s right.

"What? Why?" he asks even as he’s holding it up for Niall to take.

Niall takes his hand as if he’s about to shake it but he carefully turns it over instead, palm down. He lays the tip of his thumb on Harry’s middle finger, the one with the ring he’s had since uni. “Where did you get this ring?” he asks, touching it, rubbing across the parallel lines bracketing the central ridge. "It looks like a tiny engine seal."

Harry tries to keep his hand still. "Are you saying it's like something you can pick up at a hardware shop?"

"No, like something from a model kit.” 

“There’s no need for insults. If you don’t like it, don’t—” 

Niall laughs and Harry stares at his hand to make sure it’s not trembling. “If it's like any part of a plane, it's beautiful to me."

"Even more beautiful if it's actually a plane part, probably," he says, smirking up at Niall now that it looks like his body isn’t going to betray him.

"Not even gonna deny that," Niall says, slowly escorting Harry’s hand back across the gap between them before letting it go.

Harry wishes Niall’s eyes weren’t hidden behind the raybans. Unless it’s just him projecting, it feels like Niall is flirting with him. Harry is a born chancer, but he can’t risk being wrong about what Niall wants. Niall used to always be free with his affection, good at knowing when Harry needed an arm around him or a warm weight against him. But they were just kids then, every place a place with no consequences, every friend a friend for life. 

“You staying here tonight?”

“No, I’m flying to Japan tomorrow.”

“Work?”

“Yeah.”

“A shame, that.”

“Gem and Mum will be here. They’ve been here since last night.” 

“Oh. Right. Are they in the main house?” Niall says. “They’ve put me up in one of those down there.” He gestures at the row of small, single-storey cottages at the far end of the gardens. “Mine’s the one with the blue door.”

They look like fixed up workmen’s cottages, but Harry wouldn’t be surprised if they’re new, built for guests who’d like a bit of heritage. “Looks nice.” He takes a sip of his wine. “What’s it like inside?” 

“Want to come have a look for yourself?”

Harry smiles, feeling shy and thrilled and triumphant all at once. 

He puts his glass down, wipes his lips with the backs of his knuckles. “Lead the way,” he says, and gets up after Niall. 

Halfway through the crowd, Niall says he has to grab his suit jacket from the terrace and ferries Harry up the steps with a hand around his arm. Harry sees his mum dancing with Robin and catches Niall looking too, a small smile on his face. 

They double back and walk round the other side of the terrace before going down the steps again. The lower gardens are fragrant with lilacs and azaleas, the ornamental bushes seemingly only clusters of colours now as Harry gets closer. A girl in a deep green dress passes by them, grinning into her phone. 

The cottage studio isn’t large, but there’s a nice king bed in it, a writing desk, and a sitting area with a couple of leather armchairs and a long, deep sofa. Harry takes off his fedora and hangs it on the coat rack, quickly flipping his hair, mussing it right, while Niall’s back is turned.

The first thing Niall does after inviting him to sit down is take off his tie. He leaves it knotted still, hangs it and the suit jacket both on the back of the desk chair. 

Harry reclines on the sofa and watches with quiet fascination as more and more freckled skin comes on show when Niall unbuttons his collar, then the button below it, then the ones along the sleeves, which Niall rolls up and up, almost to his elbows. 

But Niall’s not really facing him, making a dance of it. It’s not like a seduction at all, which makes Harry want him even more. He imagines putting Niall’s wrists together and licking where the pulse beats and feels his face grow hot. He drums his fingers on the arm of the sofa just to hear something else in his head.

“Sorry,” Niall says, knocking back into the desk chair as he turns around, a surprised look on his face, as if he forgot about Harry being there. “'M not used to wearing suits to a party. Can’t relax in them.”

Harry shrugs, spreads his arms out over the back of the sofa, opens his mouth to say it doesn’t matter, but what comes out is: “Well, it’s your party in here. You can wear whatever you want to.”

Niall chuckles, looking away. He fixes the lie of the desk chair even though there’s no need to. Harry can see him, ten years old, apologising for tracking sand into the kitchen at the holiday house even as he swept it all out the door, the sound of Harry’s mum and dad arguing down the back stairwell muted by the _whoosh whoosh_ of the broom, Harry telling him to leave it because it’s the perfect time of day to go to the village for hot chips. 

He’s expecting Niall to get them drinks now or put some music on, but Niall is coming over like he’s working fast, ahead of his nerves. Harry holds his breath, surprised, and disappointed when Niall sits down in the armchair across the woolly area rug from him.

“How much do you know about what’s happening with the company right now?”

He blinks. Maybe fooling around is not really what Niall is after. Or maybe this is some kink Niall has. Harry dated a bloke once who liked to get off only after he’d summarised the state of his portfolio. He still can’t hear the words ‘carbon credit’ and not feel an ache in his balls. “Um. You said there might be a new project in the works.”

Niall looks at him for a long while. “Alright. Am I correct in assuming you don’t know it’s in the process of being bought out?”

It’s strange, all at once hearing Niall’s question, knowing he’s heard it, and also feeling like he hasn’t. “I didn’t know. No one—Sidwith is being bought out? Is that …” He crosses his legs at the ankles, tucks his hands under his elbows. “Does my dad know? Of course he does. What’s happening then?”

“What’s definitely happening is the buyout,” Niall says, the corners of his mouth tight. “From what I’ve pieced together, last year someone put it out there that we’re for sale.” Harry senses Niall knows who that someone is. “We’ve now got two bidders left standing, the Lampardi family and DAE Systems. The Lampardis are only interested in us as an investment. They’re perfectly happy to let the company run as it is. A few of their people in key executive spots, but that’s about it. DAE Systems have a different idea. They want to take us apart even though they haven’t said so. They’ve got their own holdings that they can dissolve our assets into and they don’t need most of our employees.”

“But that’s like, thousands and thousands of people.”

“Two weeks ago, after the report from the proxy firm came back in favour of the DAE bid, the board of directors tabled it for a shareholders’ vote. As things stand, the offer will definitely get voted through.” Harry has no idea what a proxy firm is, but from Niall’s tone of voice, he suspects Niall doesn’t agree with its report. 

Harry can’t imagine Sidwith disappearing into the belly of another company. He’s never felt like any of the businesses were a part of his life, but when he thinks of those planes, he thinks of his childhood, of their families and their history together. He thinks of Bobby, face flushed, a pencil tucked behind his ear, grilling steaks and correcting drawings at the same time, and somehow managing not to set the wrong things on fire. 

“You’re not voting for it, though, are you?” 

“DAE is a defence contractor. I don’t care if all they want from us is our stockpile of electrical wiring. That wiring would go into things that are designed to make killing people efficient and cheap,” Niall says. “I don’t know what your politics are, but that’s just wrong to me. Not to mention the twelve-thousand people who would lose their jobs. The plant in Wolverhampton and the hangars in England would definitely close. The pension plans look to be safe, but none of us would be around to make sure they stay safe.”

“So you’re voting for the Lampardis?” 

“That’s what I’d like to do.” Niall exhales. “But the Lampardi bid is still only under consideration. Even if it does go up for voting, and I’m gonna fight for that to happen, I still don’t have enough to win. The employee share scheme will definitely go with me and I have another five percent promised to me by a friend, but that takes us to roughly twenty-seven percent.”

Harry winces inwardly. Niall probably wants Harry to convince Des to vote with him. Niall must really not know what Harry’s relationship with Des is like. Niall should have gone to Gemma. Des listens to Gemma. She’s business-minded. She’s also not Harry. 

“That sucks,” Harry says because Niall looks like he’s waiting for him to say something.

Niall leans forward on his elbows. “Do you know how the Sidwith shares work?”

Harry can see Niall already has an idea about what his answer will be. “Niall, just assume I don’t know a thing,” he says, and then lies, “because I kind of know, but you’re trying to tell me something. So tell me and then we’ll be on the same page.”

“Okay,” Niall nods. “When they floated the company in the early nineties, our families kept a controlling share, fifty-one percent, split equally between yours and mine. Ten percent went to an employees’ share scheme and the rest sold to the public. There were stipulations put in place by our grandparents saying, upon their deaths, your dad would receive the Styles shares but only to administer on you and your sister’s behalf. The same for the Horan shares. Bobby had hold of them only for me and Greg,” he explains. “Me and Greg are voting at the shareholders’ vote next February, him for Theo, but your dad still has control over yours and Gemma’s.”

“You need our shares,” Harry sums up, twisting the rings on his fingers. “Have you talked to my dad?”

“Your dad is gonna vote for the DAE bid.” 

It feels like he’s the one who’s let Niall down. “I’m sorry.”

Niall neatens the folds of his sleeves. “I was expecting him to say no. Des and the DAE chairman have been friendly for years. He’s got some satellite tech investments all tied up with them too. Even if he wants to vote for the Lampardi bid, he probably thinks the fallout is too big a damage.”

Harry doesn’t want to disappoint Niall, but he knows he will. He’s not the person to convince Des to vote with Niall. All he’s done is cash out the dividends he gets every year. He’s never bothered about anything else to do with Sidwith. Des won’t care what Harry thinks about anything. 

Gemma might be able to convince Des to find a workaround, though. “Can he release the shares to me and Gemma?”

“William Russ would see that as tantamount to the same thing. He’s been chairman for twenty years because he’s a right fecker when it comes to business. You don’t want to mess with him.”

“So you’re fucked unless you get the other shareholders to vote with you.”

“Pretty much. Unfortunately, Greg’s been busy these past few years, smoothing the way for DAE,” Niall chuckles wryly. Harry wonders if Greg was the person who put it out that Sidwith was for sale. He wouldn’t put it past him. “But it’s not over yet. Hardly.” Niall ducks his head and coughs. When he looks up, he’s staring right into Harry’s eyes. “I’m bringing this to you because the solicitors found a clause in the stipulations that might save everything. It says if there’s a marriage between our families, we have to vote as a block. At this point, that’s you, me, Gemma, and Greg. Two families joined together. The sum of our fifty-one percent for either the Lampardis or DAE.”

All Harry has bouncing in his head is the word ‘marriage’ coming out of Niall’s mouth.

“That means we decide in private. Take a vote in private. If it’s three-to-one, then we have a decision,” Niall says. 

“I wouldn’t vote for DAE. Gemma wouldn’t either. I know her. She wouldn’t.” 

“I know. She’s told me.”

It makes sense that Niall would go to Gemma first. She’s the businesswoman. Suddenly, he feels cold all over. Niall and Gem are getting married. “So you’ve talked to her. About the um, the clause and having to get married.” 

“Just needed to know if it might work out.” 

“What did she say?” he can hear himself mumble.

“She said to give it a shot.”

“Okay.”

“So, if you’ll have me, in a perfectly clear agreement, of course, for one year, until the sale’s gone through, I’d like us to get married."

On a carousel, Harry never could sit close to the centre. It feels like someone’s strapped him to the pole of one and everything is whizzing by in streams of light and quick slaps of axle teeth. He closes his eyes and opens them slowly, asking, "Why me? Why not Gem?"

Niall looks embarrassed for a moment. "I'm not going back in the closet."

“Oh.” He was probably embarrassed for Harry. “Um. I didn’t know.” All those stories about Niall and none of them was about his love life. “No one tells me anything,” he mumbles.

“I’m telling you now.”

“Yeah, but.” It’s been too long. There’s no way they can manage. They don’t even know each other enough. “It’s a terrible idea.”

“Because you don’t want to get married?”

“No.” Niall’s face falls and Harry quickly explains, “I mean, no, it’s not that I don’t want to get married. I’ve thought about it. I mean, I almost got married once. Well, okay, twice, but I think only one counts cos—Anyway, it didn’t work out so well. I didn’t even make it to the church.” Harry rubs his nose, smiling at the terrible choices he’s made. “I’m sorry. I’m the worst you could end up with.” 

“This marriage would purely be an arrangement between us to activate the block vote stipulation. You can think of it as a business arrangement, if that makes it easier. I know you don’t need my money, but you can tell me what you’d want out of it, and I’ll do my best to give it to you.”

“What I want out of it? I feel like I should be offended, Niall. I mean, you’ve already told me twelve-thousand people are about to lose their jobs and we might have a chance to stop that.”

“Just thought maybe the proposal could’ve been a bit sweeter.” Niall smiles sheepishly. “I didn’t even get down on my good knee.” 

Harry remembers Niall’s knee problems, going around on Segways when they were twelve because Harry had convinced Anne that Niall needed help recovering from his latest injury. By the end of their holiday, they’d lost use of both because of the sand and salty air. On the last day, Harry rolled Niall along the footpath outside the bay window just so it looked like one at least was still working.

“They won’t believe it. Us getting married. They’ll know it’s a ruse.”

“You and me. Childhood friends spending time together again and falling in love. Who’s gonna say it’s not real?”

Ben’s joke about him and Niall being childhood sweethearts comes flashing back, startling him. He wonders if Niall only seems angelic because he’s actually a shrewd little fucker. Maybe he’s always been one and Harry just never knew, like with the being closeted thing. 

“Would we be based here? I have a record to work on and I’m not going to a place with no running water to write it.”

"There's running water outside the M25, Harry."

"Ha fucking ha, Niall."

Niall grins. "Listen, mate, we can live wherever you like as long as I can get to an airfield without it taking all day." He settles back into the armchair. "Is that a yes then?"

“Maybe yes, maybe no. I’ve got like, an album to finish and I’m at the end of my record deal. It’s just like, a lot. Getting married, getting divorced.” Harry says slowly, trying not to listen to the gears whirring in his chest. "I need a few days to think about it."

"Thank you,” Niall says, simply, plainly, but with so much in his voice that Harry suspects Niall already knows Harry is probably going to say yes. “Think about it. That’s all I’m asking.” 

Harry nods. He should get up and leave, but he can barely feel his legs. He puts his feet up, reclines on the sofa – he’s earned it, he’s just been proposed to – and tries to calm himself. 

A thought comes to him as he’s staring up at the beams. “When I leave, people are going to assume we just hooked up, aren’t they?”

“Not because I’ll be telling them anything.” 

“'Course not.” Harry has a reputation and a pair of moony eyes. Niall won’t have to say a thing. “Was that part of the plan? Just in case I say no, you’ve at least rattled some cages.” A wry laugh escapes from him. “Brilliant, really.”

“That was Tommo’s idea, but I take full responsibility,” Niall says. When Harry raises a questioning eyebrow, he explains, “Louis Tomlinson. One of the solicitors from the firm I’m using. Young guy. Well, they’re all pretty young, but when—If you say yes, you’ll meet him. He’ll be the mouthy one just a couple of years older than us.”

“I don’t feel young.”

Niall is watching him in the silence, he can feel it. If he’d been invited to Niall’s room for something else, Niall would be thinking of coming over right now, leaning down to brush a hand through his hair maybe, touch his chest, touch his face and kiss him. 

“Want a beer?”

He looks over, hearing the leather creak as Niall moves off the armchair. “I don’t drink beer.”

“You don’t?” Niall shakes his head on the way to the mini-fridge. “Well, there’s a couple of those tiny bottles of champagne.”

Harry knows it’s just drinks now. A chat about nothing. A goodbye until he tells Niall his answer. 

He sits up, feeling like he’s going to start feeling sorry for himself if he doesn’t. “I’ll take both.”

#

Harry is halfway up to Gemma’s hotel room when he realises he’s too pissed to complain properly. He sends her a text, telling her to call him asap, and goes back downstairs for a bracing triple espresso and a sobering walk down the hotel drive. He’s in London in time for dinner, but he holes up in his flat instead, watching athletics until he falls asleep, dreaming of running a middle-distance race and never quite finishing.

Japan is a blast, as usual, and the clothing commercial really fun to shoot, but every time his mind gets a breather, thoughts of Niall get it racing again. He’s not sure if it isn’t a blessing Gemma hasn’t called him back.

He goes antique hunting in Kawagoe before he leaves, picking up a storeroom abacus and a set of porcelain bowls, cups, and plates. Sam, his PA, wants to know where he’s going to put them all and if it means he’s going to start eating at home. Harry shuts him up with the swag he got from the clothing company.

Gemma comes by in the afternoon, waking Harry from his nap.

Sam is in the kitchen, back to stock up Harry’s fridge and make steady harassed noises about reorganisation. Harry slumps into his couch, wishing he had a large basin of coffee to stick his head in.

“You could’ve told me,” Harry says to her, apropos of every nothing that’s led them here.

“He asked me not to.”

“So?” She sits down and lets him scoot up to put his head in her lap. “I’m your brother,” he says when she starts stroking his hair. “He’s a git who stopped wanting to know us.”

“I take it your chat with him didn’t go very well.”

“No, it went very well. For him.” He felt flattered by Niall’s attention, found himself stirred by an attraction he hadn’t felt in a long time. But Niall’s not interested in him, not in the way he thought he’d recognised. "I felt like such an idiot, not knowing I'd been on parade because he needs our Sidwith votes." 

“Oh come off it. Don't tell me you've never shown someone off at a party." When he can't deny it, she asks, "Didn't you at least enjoy yourself, spending time with him again?”

“Because he masterminded it," he grumbles.

“You're being too harsh on him. He’s just trying his best, isn’t he?”

“To save twelve-thousand jobs.”

“And all the families who depend on those jobs.”

“But it’s marriage, Gem,” he says, quietly so that Sam definitely can’t hear. “That’s trying too hard, don’t you think?”

She doesn’t reply, not for a while. “It’s all relative, I suppose. I mean, he’s used to risking his life helping people. What’s a marriage when you think about it on that scale? He knows the rewards would be well worth it, all those jobs saved and the company going to a good owner.”

“Well, I’m not used to it.” She’s gone all businesswoman on him and he hates it when she does. He shifts his head and she takes her hand away. “I’m not used to getting married for politics and business either. Never even been married. And it’s not taking a risk, is it, if he didn't care about staying alive? He hasn’t cared since Bobby died.” 

“Harry, are you even listening to yourself?” His neck stiffens when she moves. “Of course he’s cared. If he’s dead he can’t help people, can he?” she asks, pushing off his shoulder to get up. It’s totally unnecessary. There’s plenty of couch to push off against. “Do you even know what he’s been doing all this time?”

 _Not being around_ is the first thing that comes to his mind. 

“Do you know how many people he’s helped, Harry?”

Gemma looks disappointed in him, which he thinks is a bit strange considering she knows about all the charities he supports. They just happen to not be all this flying around and dropping aid stuff that Niall does. 

“If you’re going to say no, at least do it as fast as you can. We haven’t got long. We’re running out of time as it is.”

She’s out the door before Harry can ask her about all this _we_ stuff.

Not ten minutes later, he gets an email from her with links to YouTube videos. She probably wrote it sitting in her car before she actually left.

Harry finds his macbook and pulls the site up after asking Sam for the longest black possible, preferably with added caffeine pills.

One video is about the UN’s humanitarian air service and what they do, delivering aid, flying diplomats in places where non-military flights don’t happen otherwise. There’s another about how the service is run using public funding, donations, and volunteer crew.

The UN needs to learn how to make shorter videos, Harry thinks, clicking the next link. 

They’re interviewing people on the ground in Somalia and Djibouti talking about the droughts and conflict making famine widespread in the Horn of Africa. There’s no map so he has no idea where exactly that is, but he’s been to Kenya and he knows it shares a border with Somalia. Then the video cuts to a studio. There’s a coordinator for the UN Food Programme and Niall next to her. His hair is brown and his freckles bronzed. He’s absently playing with a button on his white shirt, his head turned toward his colleague as she’s answering a question. 

"… We can do more and we have to do more," the woman named Iris Ogola says.

“You’re flying civilian aircrafts in conflict zones," the interviewer says off-camera. "You’re very vulnerable up there.”

"Of course we’re vulnerable in the air but every life is vulnerable, and some lives are under constant threat. That's why we do what we do. We take the risk of being up there for a few hours and it can mean whole communities surviving instead of dying,” Niall says. “No question there what I'd choose every time."

“Who’s he?” Sam asks, handing Harry his coffee.

“The bloke I’m marrying.” Harry sniffs, qualifying, “He asked me and I’m going to say yes.”

“Congratulations. Is his kitchen bigger than yours, by any chance?”

#

Harry facetimes Jeff when it’s after lunch in LA.

“I get married to someone I've known since I was a kid and in a year, we get divorced. How do we make sure it doesn’t bollocks up my career?"

Jeff laughs. “Is this the rock musical script I sent you last week? They told me the protagonist is like, a cool alter ego. Like one of Bowie’s.”

“No.” Jeff is his manager first and foremost now. If there’s anyone he can and should tell, it’s Jeff. But he’s also an old friend. “It’s me. Like, real me,” Harry says.

The light in Jeff’s office isn’t great, but Harry can see he’s surprised. “Are you serious? Hersh, congratulations. That’s great, man. Who’s crazy enough to marry you? Do they know you’re already talking divorce?”

“I don’t know if there’s going to be a divorce,” he backtracks. “But I want us to plan for it.”

“Okay.” Jeff sits back, twirling his pen. “Yeah. Sure. We can do that,” he says comfortingly. “Who is it, though? Because we’re gonna hit album promo time in a year. I mean, it’s coming along, right? We’re still talking spring release?”

“I’ve known him since I was little. Like, baby little. He’s a pilot. Flies planes for the UN and stuff, humanitarian missions, diplomats,” Harry searches, “war correspondents. Helping people stuff basically. And we kind of reconnected, uh, recently and he wants to marry me and I want to marry him.”

Jeff’s smile is in full bloom now. He’s sitting forward, hands on his keyboard. “What’s his name?”

“Niall Horan,” Harry says, knowing Jeff’s googling it as Harry’s spelling it for him. 

“He’s cute, and he does stuff people love to love. It could be bad if you divorce him.” Jeff looks into the camera. “So marry him and don’t divorce him. Be happy.”

Harry chuckles, uneasy. He doesn’t like lying to Jeff. “Yeah. Okay.” 

Before he goes to bed, he texts Niall for a meet. 

He doesn’t fall asleep for a long time, his body refusing to rest when everyone in Japan is still awake. 

When he gets up, it’s already past noon and there’s a reply from Niall asking if he wants to meet in Primrose Hill Park, maybe around three. He considers asking where Niall is staying, but it’s not like he cares. The park is as a good place to meet as any. He texts back telling Niall the time is fine and he’d be by the entrance at the bottom of the village.

He showers and goes out for a croissant at the bakery round the corner, chatting with the guys at the counter for a bit. 

There’s nothing else he can think of doing until the meet except go back to his flat and mess about at the piano, reworking bits from old demos he’s been listening to. 

He walks back past the library and down the cut through into Chalcot Road, the pastels of its buildings bright under the sun, and somehow, half an hour later, finds himself in front of Nick’s home.

“Sorry, popstar.” Nick takes the stairs two at a time back into the kitchen. “They’re being stroppy little monsters cos they know you’re still here.”

“Sorry for just dropping in.”

Nick grins up from tossing the boys’ clothes into the washer. “Nah. ’S like old times, innit? Don’t mind feeling young and carefree again.” 

Next year he’ll be the same age Nick was when he got married. A couple of years after that, he’ll be at the age when Nick had the twins. 

“Did you know you wanted this life? Like, when you were younger.” 

“What d’you mean?”

“The twins. Spencer.” It was like some rom-com, the way Nick and Spencer met. Years of being neighbours, passing terse notes about night time noise and mud in the common areas, only to sit at the same table at an industry do and fall in love before they knew they were _Yours truly with earplugs on, Garden Flat_ and _Cordially with boots on, Flat 1_.

“I dunno. I never really thought about it much, but yeah, I suppose I did,” Nick says, a quiet happiness in his eyes. “But it’s easy to say now looking back on it, d’you know what I mean?” 

Harry nods and waits until Nick’s settled down, the quinoa and chicken for the kids’ lunch swapped for a packet of jammy dodgers and two mugs of steeping tea.

“If I’d married Taylor, I’d probably have kids too by now.”

“Which part of that d’you want me to reply to?”

Harry laughs. “None.” He picks the teabag out of his mug. “Did you manage to get a cottage for August?”

“Not yet. But I’ve got everything set for Glasto,” Nick says, swanning back from the fridge with the glass bottle of skim milk. “Matching wellies and headphones for everyone. Camp Kerala. A tent for me and Spence, and a tent for the boys. Although they’ll probably run into ours every night.” He sighs. “I hope they’ll love it. I think they will.”

“I’m sure they will. They’re yours, aren’t they? I mean, they’re really just manic versions of you.” 

“I’m feeding you. Stop maligning my children.”

Harry wasn’t Nick’s best man at his wedding. He’s not obliged to ask Nick for the same favour. 

Once he’d have asked Alice or Johnny. The band breaking up ended all of that. 

He’d like to ask Nick now, except Nick would throw a proper stag do and Harry doesn’t think he’d be able to sit through it.

“Are you in town all spring?”

“Got to pay the bills somehow, don’t I?”

Harry splits a jammy dodger and passes Nick the biscuit with the filling on it.

#

There’s a light drizzle at five to three and Harry is of the firm opinion it would be more pleasant to be in his flat, dozing on his couch with a film on. He stands, coat collar flicked inside out to cover his neck, by the copper beeches that blanket the summit walk up to the top of Primrose Hill. There’s no one else about except for a dog walker and then a woman zipping through on a pushbike. His watch ticks on until it’s three past three.

“Hello.”

Niall is behind him, a soft smile on his face, grey from head to toe except for a triangle of black and red stripes between the folds of his shawl. 

“You’re late,” Harry tells him. 

“I waved at three, but you didn’t see me.”

“You shouldn’t’ve come from behind then.”

“Didn’t know which way you’d face, did I?”

Harry wants to say Niall could have texted to tell him which way he’d be coming from, but he swallows the words down. There are more important things to argue about.

“You wanna walk somewhere or stay here?”

“Let’s walk,” Harry says, starting down the path he always takes whenever he wants to look at the warthogs in the zoo and their clever, felt-tip pen faces. 

“Have you thought more about it?” Niall asks in a monotone when they’re standing at the puffin crossing near the zoology school.

The light beeps before Harry can answer. He waits until they’re on the other side, away from the noise. “If we can agree on a few things, I'm in.”

"And what are those things?"

"You’ll sign an NDA. That’s a non-disclosure agreement. You’ll come to things I need to bring my husband to. My management handles the press for the divorce." 

“I can do all that.” 

He adds before he forgets, “And I choose where we're going to live.”

"As long as it's close enough to an airfield, we can live wherever you want."

"I haven't forgotten. You tell me what's too far and I'll leave it out."

The canal is a loamy green and completely still, as if it’s not bothered about having to go anywhere. They both spare it a glance before continuing on over the bridge.

“What else?”

“Not a church wedding,” Harry says, the thought suddenly coming to him. “Wait. Warthogs,” he points out.

“Oh yeah. Look at them,” Niall says, finally with some emotion in his voice. A smile flashes across his face before it disappears again and he turns to say, “I was gonna bring that up too. Glad we’re eye to eye on that.”

“I just think it'll make the arrangements less of a faff if we just get like, a registrar to do it,” Harry says, looking at the warthogs one more time before moving on. He never stays for long if he can help it. On the rare occasion he does, he starts to feel guilty about seeing them for nothing. "And we'll have fewer sins to worry about."

"Can't argue with you there," Niall says, following Harry down the path that meanders along the back of the zoo. Harry has been down it only once himself, when he thought he’d try the park to switch up his runs. "So, we're all agreed then."

Harry chews his lips. "Are we going to use a prenup?"

"All I have are the shares and the house Bobby left me, but if that’s what you want, I have nothing against it." 

It’s never occurred to Harry that Niall has a place of his own. Bobby lived in Ireland his whole life so that must be where the house is. Harry wonders if he might like living in Dublin. “Do you like it there?”

“The house? I dunno. Never lived in it. Didn’t even know Bobby owned a place here. Ma said it’s his house from before they got married.”

“By here you mean London?”

“No. ’S a bit further out.”

Living outside London sounds more like Bobby, but the city has its own quiet places, its own quiet times. Like the path they’re on, a sopping ditch on one side and an empty field on the other. Everyone else with better things to do than walk it in a drizzle. 

“When we split up, it’ll have to be a divorce by consent,” he says, picking up the pace. 

“A no-fault divorce,” Niall says.

Harry nods. “So like, we don’t blame each other for anything.” He looks to his left over Niall, but he can’t see anything. Just the ditch and the shrubbery, the glass windows of the animal house beyond. “There’ll probably be rumours anyway, and the papers doing some muckraking. My management will try to make us both look good, like they’ll be under orders to do that, but at the end of the day, they’re going to protect me before they protect you. Cos, you know, that’s how they pay their bills. And you can’t say anything to the contrary, not even to like, your mates.” 

“It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks of me. Doesn’t change anything as long as we both know the truth,” Niall says. He chuckles, his eyes twinkling. “And Ma, of course. She’d have my head if she thought I hurt you. If she starts getting angry at me, you’re gonna have to defend me.” 

“Doesn’t she know what you’re up to?”

Niall shrugs. “Probably. But if we get in trouble, I don’t want her involved,” he says, suddenly fierce. “I didn’t want to bring Gemma into it either, but I had to be sure about her vote before I asked you.”

Harry breathes deeply. If Niall could’ve brought himself to marry Gemma, Niall wouldn’t have involved him at all. He’d have watched his sister marrying Niall, smiling from the front pew, because Gemma wouldn’t want anything less than a church wedding for her first and she’d have convinced Niall it’s for the best. He’d have hated them both, for the denials, for keeping him on the outside of things.

“D’you know anyone who can get us snapped for celebrity gossip news or whatever you call it?” Niall asks, one hand on his arm.

He pauses and Niall stops with him. “Why?”

“We might as well go ring shopping now. Get this whole thing started.”

He doesn’t know why he starts laughing. Maybe it’s because the last time he and Niall went shopping, it was for crisps and grape juice. 

“Why’re you—What’s so funny?” 

Or maybe it’s because he’s remembering how it took months before he and Taylor decided on their wedding rings. “You want to go now? Today? The shops close in a couple of hours.”

“So? How long can it take?”

Harry sobers. There’s no reason to take months after all. They don’t even have to pick them together if they can’t find anything today. “Okay.” It’s all simple because it’s all for show. “D’you have a shop in mind?”

“I dunno. A jewellery shop?”

He shakes his head. “Is this what I’m going to have to put up with?”

They end up on Bond Street half an hour later, its lamps already on against the coming twilight. 

“Take your pick,” Harry says after paying the cabbie.

Niall’s jaw clenches as he looks up and down. “Alright. I know shit all about this kind of thing. You lead the way.”

Harry would make fun of him a bit more, but he’s feeling a bit heavy, like the jet lag is hitting him again. He pretends to be fixing Niall’s shawl for him so he can quietly say, “If you just want to be papped going in and out of a place, it doesn’t matter, does it?”

“No, but people would wonder if they saw photos of you shopping at the pound shop, wouldn’t they?”

“For rings?” he smiles, brushing the collars of Niall’s pea coat. “'Course they would.”

“Is someone already taking photos of us?”

“Tip number one: if you think someone’s taking your photo, someone probably is.”

Niall raises his eyebrows at that. 

They stroll up to New Bond Street and back down again before Niall stops him and leans in, the newsboy cap a rough brush against his skin. “If you had to pick a new ring for yourself, something to match that engine seal of yours, where would you get it?”

Harry draws a blank.

“Come on. Think.”

It’s not terribly easy when he’s tired and Niall is breathing down on him, literally. 

“Okay. I’ve got it,” Harry says, turning round to go back up the street again. “There’s a French one that does pretty cool mechanical-type rings.” 

They’re let in even though it’s almost five. Harry accepts the offer of a glass of wine and asks to see the plain wedding bands.

When the tray of rings is brought out, Niall laughs, his face seemingly the only thing alive in the black velvet mausoleum they’ve kitted the shop as. 

“What?”

The salesperson is watching them across her desk, eyes solemn. 

“This,” Niall says, picking up a platinum ring with a deep channel down the middle as wide as the round bands running on either side of it. “Isn’t it just yours but the other way?”

If they were really getting married, it would be nice, Harry muses, for him to put his ring on Niall’s finger and have Niall do the same with the ring he’s singled out.

“Shall we get two of those then?”

“Sorted,” Niall says, smiling at him.

It’s amazing. Twenty minutes, six grand, and they’ve got wedding rings. With no inscription, of course. They want to get papped with a shopping bag.

Niall whispers into his ear. "I'm going to take your hand as soon as we're outside."

"What?" It feels like that’s all he’s been saying since Niall came back into his life, but he’s not ready. He’s really not. 

The security guard opens the door. They step out onto the pavement, Niall a touch ahead of him, smiling.

He feels his hand being swept up, fingers interlocking with Niall’s. 

"How's this?"

Harry ducks his head, feeling himself blush. It’s bloody embarrassing and it’s going to be online to haunt him for the rest of his life. "Fine. Um. It’s cold, but it’s fine."

Gemma sends him another set of links that night with cheeky congratulations from Paris. She’s off on another one of her romantic getaways, apparently. In his imagination they always involve walks along the Seine, meals full of easy laughter, and Gemma finding herself with a bloke who loves her as much as she loves him. Harry knows the trips usually end up being mild disasters, but he likes the feeling of hope that comes with idle wishes, most of the time.

#

There’s another summons from his father, probably about the photos in the Mail, along with a car waiting to ferry him to the City. There isn’t a mob outside his door, but there are paps loitering across the road. Harry is glad he can jump in the back and disappear.

“What’s this I heard about you and Niall?” his father asks halfway down the gauntlet, signing documents at the edge of Sylvie’s desk.

“We’re getting married.”

“Then, congratulations.” Des leaves the pen and turns for his office. 

For the very first time, Harry notices his father checking his reflection in the glass wall as he walks with no one following. 

“Well,” Des says, “are you coming?” 

Sylvie mouths congratulations at Harry and he gives her a smile back. 

Des is at his desk when Harry gets in and closes the doors behind him. “I suppose this means I won’t be voting next year about the Sidwith sale.”

“Why’s that?”

Des fixes beady eyes at him, as if daring him to keep obnoxiously pretending. 

Harry sits down on the arm of the chair closest to him. 

“The proxy firm report didn’t look right to me,” Des says. “I’ll get the board together and put in for a different firm to do a report. Bring this back to centre.”

At least there’s good news Harry can relay to Niall. “That’s great.” He sniffs. “I mean, there’s more than one bid out there. We should be able to vote on all the recommended ones.”

Des pivots in his desk chair, looking incredibly satisfied with himself. "That's the most interest you've ever shown in the company, and you haven't even married him yet."

Harry could say he’s shown interest before, sitting next to Niall at the kitchen table in Cornwall, listening to Bobby point out why airplane wings are the way they are, not flat and straight like most people think but tipped and tilted so they can help each other get out of trouble. But he holds his tongue, keeps the memory just for himself and Niall.

"You won't cry off again, will you, Harry? Our families go back a long way and this isn't the time to be whimsical about important things."

He gets up at that. “Mum’s having a lunch to celebrate. Her and Robin’s house, Sunday week, one o’clock. Come or don’t come. Doesn’t matter to me.”

#

Harry leaves Chris and Robin at the wet bar making another pitcher of Bloody Mary. They're talking about the different lures they use throughout the salmon season and there's nothing he can add to the topic. He’s worn waders and toted a fishing rod around once, but only at a fancy dress party.

He walks down the hallway, drinking his long black and taking in framed family photos set along the rail that tops the wainscoting.

There's only one photo of the holiday house in Cornwall. He and Niall are two blots of pink swaddled in their grandmother's arms. Behind them, Gem in plaits and a laughing Greg ignore each other on the window seat, the gnarled apple tree in the garden fuzzy through the glass panes. The other adults are spread out on the rest of the sofas and chairs, smiling for the camera. It’s a weird photo for his mum to put up. He knows she’s got plenty of just herself and her children throughout the summers there.

When he comes back, everyone else is still at the lunch table Robin set up in the conservatory, although only Mum and Maura haven't moved from their places, Mum at the head and Maura to her right. They're laughing about sheep, at a story from when Maura tried to keep some, probably. A couple of them would keel over instead of moving away every time they were startled. Niall took a video for him and he showed it to Alice, who said Niall was cruel for doing it on purpose. Morals were easy in primary school.

His mum and Robin love their long lunches, but Harry has never dropped in on one and seen his father at the table. It was a surprise when he came in, two bottles of red in his hands. Greg had sent his apologies and Harry thought Des would do the same. He’s never known Des to eat with people he's not doing business with. He supposes Niall counts as one of those people now, and Gem is in their little corner too, talking about her new suppliers. 

If it were Niall and Gem about to set up house together, they'd probably turn some of the rooms into offices. The house would turn into one of those co-op buildings in Clerkenwell that Gem started out in, a fair trade jeweller's showroom next door and a tech consultancy across the hallway. Aeroplane parts and jewellery aren't so different, as Niall seems to think. 

Niall doesn't want to go back into the closet, but now that Harry’s had time to think about it, no one said he had to. People get married for different reasons. The two of them should know that better than most. 

He goes to his old upright in the nook and starts playing standing up, too lazy to look for one of the three or four piano stools scattered around the house. There used to only be one until it was emptied of the exercise books and music sheets and his mum found the hidden compartment under the seat useful for other things. It would be in the oddest places whenever he came home from uni. Over the years, its other replacements met the same fate. She would decide the repurposed stool was too useful in its novel spot and buy another one for the piano, but eventually the new stool would be used for something else too. He found one in her bathroom once, stuffed with manicure things. He'd have put the piano in there as a joke if he hadn't needed a crane and a window knocked out and put back in to do it.

He feels a hand on his lower waist, where the fat likes to settle when he puts on weight. It's Niall. 

When he straightens he can feel Niall's arm across his back, tight after the long flight from LA.

"Don't stop," Niall says.

"I don't think you need to put on a show in front of them, Niall. I'm sure they all know why we're getting married."

"What you talking about?"

"Why is your hand on my waist?" Harry says, lightly popping the hip below Niall’s hand.

"A bit of practice never hurts."

Harry takes a deep breath. "If that's also a dig at my piano playing, I'll have you know ..."

"You sound different when you play sitting down?"

"It's all in the position. Back straight, knees and elbows relaxed, head up."

"You never could keep your back straight to save your life, Harry."

"My life was never in danger, was it?"

"Stroppy as ever, too," Niall chuckles. "Come on. The cakes are on the table."

"How much did my mum cook for today?"

"No. She didn’t make these. She said they’re from a couple of places in London. A Viennese place in Covent Garden, some French place in Knightsbridge, a place in Chelsea that does just wedding cakes, and one other place near ...” Niall sighs. “Can’t think of it off the top of my head. Some market. She'll probably go over it again." Harry wants to say that's more than a couple, but what does it matter. Niall sounds like his brain is already a bit full. "See which one we want for the wedding cake. If we don’t like any of them, she’s got more places on the list."

"We should’ve gotten a wedding planner," Harry says, thinking of the one Taylor hired in New York and spent half her time with. They took care of everything. All Harry had to do was nod approvingly and show up for the ceremony. He did great on the former and completely bollocksed up the latter.

"You reckon? We’ve already got a committee.” 

"What? Who?"

Niall laughs, his hand squeezing lightly, mindlessly. "How else d'you think this wedding is happening? Your sister’s at the helm and your mother’s second chairing."

Harry’s not sure if Niall is joking about a committee, but maybe that’s why there’s nothing for him to do. "No one asked me to do anything."

"You’re doing the outfits with your stylist."

"Oh. Yeah, but that’s like, easy.” It’s eight weeks until the wedding. They’ve put together red-carpet looks in less than a day. “Other than that, I meant.” 

“You’re looking for a place for us for after,” Niall says, his voice gentle, his eyes even more so. “How’s that going, by the way?”

Harry shrugs and moves. There are cakes to taste and his mum to thank. “It’s alright.” He’s looked at some rental listings on a property search app. “I might get like, an agency who can go looking, or someone from the label to do it. I want a place with a music studio. The setup in my flat is all custom, like, fitted just for that room. I can’t really take it with me.”

“You still think your place is too small for two?”

The kitchen is already too small, as Sam keeps saying. He doesn’t know how much stuff Niall has, but it seems a stupid thing to do anyway, trying to fit Niall into his flat when they’ll only be married a year. “Yeah. We’d be on top of each other. It would be pretty weird and like, annoying.”

Niall nods absently. He gives Harry a quick smile and walks to the door, saying he’s just going to the loo.

#

“Harry, your um, your fiancée is here.”

He turns his head away from the outboard and the room quietens. “My … Where?”

“’Lo.”

He gets up, the chair rolling back and thumping into Julian’s. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “Hey. Um.” He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. “Hello.”

Niall smiles, leaning against the doorway. “Thought I’d take you out to lunch.” He looks around the recording studio. “Hello, everyone.”

Everyone says hello back. Harry catches his rudeness and introduces each of them to Niall, who’s in all grey again except for a different matelot t-shirt and cargos instead of jeans. It’s like some weird uniform and he’s blending right into the dark woolly walls.

“We just ordered in. Yauatcha,” he tells Niall after they’re all done shaking hands and some of the cheeky ones offer congratulations on the coming wedding. 

“You what?” Niall gives him a confused look. “What did you say?”

“Um, dim sum. It’s a dim sum place.” 

“Ah.”

He doesn’t understand how Niall knows he’s at Dean Street today, but there’s nothing to be done about it and he remembers Niall loving Chinese food. “Why don’t you join us?” 

Niall tips his head. “Was hoping to take you somewhere.” There’s a blaze in his eyes Harry has seen before but can’t remember when or where. It feels important that he does. “I can wait. Come back later.” 

“Go on, Harry,” someone says. Julian, maybe, or Ishan.

“I’m not—I thought we’re going to work on that bass line for _Have and_ —uh, you know. Don’t you have to go in a couple of hours?” he turns to Julian.

“ _Have and Hold_? It can wait.” When Harry frowns, Julian adds, “If you really wanna do it today, I can come back after dinner, alright? Come on, dude, the muse is right here, asking you out to lunch.”

He didn’t write it because of Niall. None of his songs are about Niall. But he can’t say that now. 

They’re meant to be in love and all that.

Niall scratches the back of his neck. “Didn’t meant to put you in a hard spot, fellas. Harry, we can do this another time.”

Harry looks over Niall’s shoulder, sees Sam’s disapprovingly crossed arms. “No, it’s okay. Let’s go,” he says, grabbing his stuff. He reaches for his hat and catches a whiff of his left pit. As he expected after rushing in the morning and working six hours straight, it’s a little rank. He hopes they’re not going anywhere fancy. “Sorry.” He straightens. “I’m just like, still in that work mode.”

“Why you apologising about working?” Niall says, patting his back and putting an arm around him, warm, solid as a rock. “Eejit. I’m the one who crashed the party.”

Someone is cooing behind him. 

Harry gives the lot of them his middle finger. 

There’s nothing fancy about sandwiches in a Range Rover – Niall’s, not his, even though they’re exactly alike – and a drive through Central London, but he’s famished and there’s also crisps and coconut water. 

“I forgot how messy you are when you eat,” Niall says, genuine regret in his voice. 

“Soz,” Harry crunches. “Where are we going anyway?”

At the long traffic light in Swiss Cottage, Harry thinks about the last time he went to see a movie at the Odeon and nods off. 

When he wakes up, they’re somewhere in Herts going by the council signs he’s spotting. He drinks the rest of his water to wash off the salt crusted in his mouth. “How long was I asleep?”

“Half an hour, maybe. No, bit longer than that. Fifty minutes?”

“That’s more than a bit longer,” he points out, finding his hat in the foot well. “We’re not in London any more, are we?”

“Passed the M25 about ten minutes ago. We’re almost there, though.”

They’re definitely in the commuter belt. It’s so leafy and green, fields and paddocks taking turns with gated properties and their high hedges to line the roads. 

“Where are we going?” Harry asks for the fourth time, and also for the fourth time, there’s no reply except for an impish smile that suits Niall irritatingly well.

Niall turns into a narrow lane, wooded on one side, and then down a private driveway that ends in a flat splodge of gravel wide enough for four cars and beyond it, a terraced stone cottage.

“This is it,” Niall says, a little breathless, and jumps out of the car before Harry can say anything back.

The house is double-fronted, its façade plain except for a draping of ivy on one side. 

There’s a small birdbath like a stone eye peeking through the overgrown bushes that bracket the steps up to the front door. The bath is empty, but Harry can hear birds chirping in the trees, or wherever they like to chirp from. 

“It’s probably not what you’re used to, but Da liked the quiet,” Niall says above the crunch of gravel under their feet.

Several thoughts run through Harry’s mind, racing to be picked first. He takes the steps and goes for the simplest. “This is the house Bobby left you?”

“Yeah,” Niall says, opening the door and letting Harry through. “’Been staying here for a few weeks now.”

It doesn’t look it. The room he walks into is completely empty. At the end of the hallway, he can see a kitchen. From the amount of light hitting the bare counter and floors, it looks large. 

He turns to Niall. “Why are we here?”

“Let me show you the place first,” Niall says, and slips behind him to walk into a room to their left. 

It’s a little smaller than the first room and the windows face the front and other side of the house. There’s a single bed and a holdall with papers and socks spilling out of it. “Where I’m bunking at the moment.”

“Is that everything you own?” 

Niall chuckles. “Pretty much. Got a suitcase somewhere. I think it’s in the kitchen. It’s a hard case. Makes a good chair.”

Harry goes over to the side windows, drawn by the apple tree he can see through the leaded glass. There’s another one close by, before a low stone wall that separates the garden from what looks like a public footpath. “D’you remember the apples in Cornwall?” he asks, glancing back.

“Yeah,” Niall says, grinning. “They were so sour.”

They were. And when they weren’t, he and Niall would make squinty monster faces at each other anyway. 

He traces one of the young apples with his finger on the glass, feeling like he’s back in that nowhere space, when everything was all right and anything was possible. “Have you had these ones?”

“Never been here when they’re ripe.”

“Planning on finding out this year?” Harry asks lightly, impatiently. He’d appreciate Niall getting to the point. There’s no reason for him to see the house unless what Niall wants is for them to live in it.

“I don’t have plans to let it out again anytime soon.” 

“That’s not cryptic at all,” Harry mutters, more to himself because Niall’s already leaving the room. He follows, half his mind on going back to the car and leaving except Niall has the keys. 

Niall is waiting for him in the corridor, motioning for him to lead the way. 

There’s a tiled bathroom to his left and another empty room to his right, facing the side of the house he hasn’t looked at yet. He goes in, his footsteps echoing on the flagstone floor. There’s nothing to see except what’s out the windows. Through a set of trees, he can see a valley smeared by sunlight and sky, strips of tilled pasture, and the shadows of a coppiced wood. 

“Why didn’t you put your bed in here? The view’s amazing.”

Niall shrugs, but he’s smiling. 

The architectural style of the house doesn’t really make sense – it’s more like there’s no style at all, lost to generations of unfaithful renovations – but Bobby probably didn’t buy it for looks. 

There’s also a box room further down, and across the corridor from it, what Harry assumes is meant to be the dining room because it’s right before the kitchen, but who the hell knows really, because it’s empty too. 

He’s right, though. The kitchen is large, taking up the whole end of the house. 

There’s a battered hard-shell suitcase tucked up against the breakfast bar. He gives Niall a look, shaking his head. “Maura would have something to say about this.”

“Haven’t invited her over yet,” Niall says.

“Okay,” Harry raps his fingers on the counter. “Well, if you’ve brought me over so you can like, show me how you’ve managed to live with no furniture except for a bed, I’m impressed.” 

Niall sighs. “I’m getting to it. Jesus.”

“Well?”

“I know we agreed you’ll choose where we’re going to live, but there’s enough room here and I thought—” Niall opens a door on the near side of the kitchen, the one Harry put down as one for the pantry – “the cellar might be a good spot for your studio.” 

Niall disappears and Harry follows, his chest tightening. 

There’s a set of surprisingly wide and easy stairs going down. He thought it would be a steep drop.

Niall is waiting for him at the bottom of the steps, where there’s carpeting and none of the dank smells he remembers from the cellar in his mum’s house. “It’s a dry cellar, already damp-proofed. One of the old tenants did that so he’d have … a games room? Something like that. I’ve been told it wouldn’t take long to turn it into a home studio.”

Harry sniffs. It’s a good space, he can see that, but he doesn’t like the idea of putting a studio in Bobby’s old house, not for their little farce of a marriage. They’d have to take it out after just a year. It’s a waste of time and money. 

“It’s fine if you don’t like it. There’s this and the two bedrooms upstairs. You could turn one of them into a studio. I can turn this into my room.”

“Why—” He tries again, “Why would you sleep in your cellar?” Niall never liked being closed in. He didn’t have a phobia, but he didn’t like caves and tunnels. Lifts. Closets. Hide and seek.

“Cellars are perfectly good places to sleep in. This would be the best one so far. It’d be the Four Seasons of cellars.”

Niall seems so normal, Harry thinks. In another world one wormhole over, Niall would have a nine-to-five job and a mortgage, friends he’d play footy with on the weekends, and Harry would see him passing by as he set off to work on a pushbike, a messenger bag strapped to his back and his tie tucked into his shirt. In this one, he’s slept in cellars, almost gotten himself killed many times over, and eaten breakfast sat on a suitcase. 

Now he wants to stick a music studio in his house just for a year when there’s no need to. Harry won’t die if he has to camp out at the recording studios in London some nights. He’s done it before, usually not on purpose but it’s the doing that counts. 

“Or there’s the garden,” Niall says, waiting for Harry by the stairs. “A shed studio wouldn’t need a building permit, they told me.” 

Harry nods conversationally and goes up two steps at a time, stands in the sun-filled kitchen while Niall unlocks the back door.

They step out onto a wide bricked terrace like the one out front. Or maybe it’s just one terrace that goes all the way round, making no sense at all for what was probably a farmer’s cottage in the very beginning of time. Below the shallow steps, the gardens meet and spread out again, rolling down on a gentle slope. 

There’s a small paddock over their borders and he can see a road sign beyond it, which he has to squint to read. “Isn’t there a Sidwith hangar at Panshanger Aerodrome? I remember my dad taking me there when I was a kid. Is that near here?”

“We’re equidistant to Elstree and Panshanger. Probably why Bobby picked the place, to be honest with you. But the Panshanger operation shut years ago. The guy that ran the team down here moved up to Dublin to take over Bobby’s team and they closed the hangar after that.” 

It’s the closest they’ve gotten to talking about Bobby’s death. Harry doesn’t think he’s bitter any more about Niall leaving without a word, about feeling so fucking alone in that pain, so it’s probably safe to ask what he’s wanted to know for years.

“Niall, where did you go after he died? You just like, disappeared.”

“Somerset.”

"Somerset?" Harry glances over to see if Niall's joking, but his face is completely serious.

“I did a lot of flying over Somerset for a couple of months,” Niall says. “It was right around when there was really severe flooding there. Still the worst they’ve ever seen. A mate of mine hooked me up with a disaster response charity down here. They let me go on damage assessment flights, pilot some of them too. After that I got to do some post-disaster reconnaissance stuff with them in Mexico, got a lot of hours on a turboprop there cos they had a relationship with FAM, the Mexican Air Force. Some sick pilots. Amazing. But, yeah, military, aren’t they?” He scratches his hair, pulling it up in tufts. “Then, I don’t know how, but I was in Botswana, then Kenya, South Africa, Uganda. Couldn’t really do Somalia. Too stressful and you don't really wanna keep planes overnight there without armed guards. But I did fly in and out. Yemen too. First place I ever slept in a cellar.” He chuckles before falling quiet, rubbing invisible dirt off one of the empty stone planters by the terrace steps. “Well, anyway, I wouldn’t say I disappeared. I came back here a few times. Tested a few planes for Sidwith.”

 _But you never came to see me,_ Harry doesn’t say, his breath going shallow.

Maybe he’s not quite done being bitter. He looks down the garden to stop himself from staring at Niall’s profile, at the soft features making one sharp edge.

It's hard to shake off the old feeling that silence is the sound of Niall gone. They're going to live together soon. He doesn't know if it means the feeling will go away or if it'll get stronger, if he'll wake up not seeing Niall's car and thinking he's disappeared again even though he's just left for the shops. 

He focuses on what he can see, what’s in the here and now. The paddock’s fence in the afternoon light, the thin planks like pale ladyfingers. The black and white arrow-tipped sign for Panshanger. The sky a blue filled with bird music, with miles they’re flapping their wings across and currents to glide along. 

“Sounds like you’ve got about a year’s worth of stories to tell.”

“I doubt it,” Niall says lightly. “It’s all pretty repetitive. You’d be bored before Christmas.”

“No. I don’t think I would be,” Harry says, trying to be as honest as he wants Niall to be. “That’s like, a lot of places and it's all nothing I know anything about.”

“Harry, you’ve done a world tour.” 

“Don’t tell me. You went to the concert in Johannesburg.”

Niall laughs. “No. I just heard about the tour from me mam.”

When he doesn't elaborate, Harry gives him a quick smile and starts following the terrace round to the front.

“I think it’s amazing, you know, what you’ve done,” Niall says after him, making him pause. “I never—I should’ve said. You’ve done a hell of a lot with your music. It was nice, knowing you were out there, doing what you love and being so successful at it.”

Harry turns to look at him, at the kindness also in his thoughtful eyes. “Thank you.” When he looked at the sky, wondering if Niall was up there, it wasn’t always nice, but he’ll admit to being glad Niall was doing what he loved, even if it also meant they’d never see each other again. “You too, you know? You wanted to fly and you did.”

Niall nods and Harry waits, then, for him to catch up.

“What’s it like here? I mean, it’s quiet and like, that’s nice, but are the shops close enough?” he asks when Niall is walking by his side. “I mean, obviously you can't just stroll down the road for a meal, but do you have to drive twenty minutes or ..."

“There’s a couple of villages around here if you’re up for a long walk," Niall says. "A ten-minute drive more or less. But if I’m around there’s always gonna be food in the house. Don’t you worry about that. I always have food tucked away somewhere. Got used to it with all the travelling and needing to shift fast.”

They’ve spent a couple of weeks texting here and there, mostly about the wedding and getting themselves registered with the council for it, a few times about all other shit they’re busy with, but Niall’s not mentioned his own work. Harry’s been assuming Niall doesn’t have much flying on his plate, but maybe he’s wrong. Maybe Niall will have some travelling to do. He did mention wanting to be close enough to an airfield. Maybe it’s not just about where he’s planning on keeping a plane for pleasure. “Have you been working out of Elstree?”

“Yep.”

“Would you reopen Panshanger if you end up staying here?” Harry asks carefully.

Niall makes a conflicted noise. “I don’t know if the company would be interested in opening it back up again. Technically, you don’t need that many people for the kind of flight testing I’m involved in, and it’s so easy to do things remotely these days, but we’d be the only ones there. All the security and insurance costs would be on us.”

If they set themselves up at the house, Niall would have Panshanger reopened somehow. Harry can feel it deep down in his sandwich-lined gut.

“The views must be amazing when the sun’s coming up,” he says, turning toward the trees with their branches fidgeting in the wind, sentinels waiting to go on watch. 

“Haven’t been up early enough,” Niall admits. 

“Do you want to keep living here? Properly, I mean. Not just like, bunking.”

Niall exhales. “Yeah, I do, I suppose. Would be good to give it a go, even just for a year. See what Bobby was thinking of when he put this house down for me.” 

It doesn’t seem like Niall’s just said it for the sake of saying it, but surely he knows why Bobby gave the house to him. 

Harry remembers Niall learning how to fly at fourteen and skyping him about it, flooded with happiness. “It’s wicked, Harry. It’s like seeing the air, but not. You just feel it, the plane makes you feel it.”

Stirred, Harry took some flying lessons too, but those didn’t last. He didn’t like his first instructor, who never laughed and made everything a slog with his not-laughing. Then he got grounded, literally, because he wouldn't get off the radio. _He's a menace, sir,_ his second instructor told his father.

Flying also turned out to involve a lot of maths, which he didn’t like. He didn’t understand how Niall got through all the theory, Niall who could never sit still for more than two minutes at a time. 

After Niall took him flying in Manchester and told him stories about working with his father, Harry thought the reason Niall had managed to learn to fly was Bobby, all the hours Niall spent with him once he’d gotten himself in the air. 

If Harry were a father, he would want to give his children what he thought would make their lives easier. That’s what parents do, he’s starting to think.

He likes the house. It’s not too big for them, but there’s also enough room for two people who haven’t spent time together in years. He likes the way the terrace leads into the back gardens and all the way round again. It feels like a proper family home somehow, and he hasn’t lived in one since he left school.

“Bobby was thinking you might want to use it,” Harry says. It sounds inane said out loud, but. It feels right. “So, let’s use it.” 

On the way back to Soho, Niall asks about where he wants a studio on the property. Harry tells him the house is close enough to London that they shouldn’t even bother putting one in. He’ll do fine with a computer, maybe a small digital setup, and his piano. Their goodbyes are brief, Niall dropping him off early because the traffic’s impossible past Charing Cross Road. It’ll be a month before they see each other again, when they’re booked in with Lambert to get fitted for their morning suits. Niall squeezes his shoulder before driving off and he watches the car go, thinking mostly about the empty bottle and wrappers he left in it.

#

At the fitting, Niall is standing a bit like he did on Bond Street, his mouth slightly agape, his eyes flitting desperately between the frenzy in the loft and the calm pearly vastness of London beyond its wide double-storey windows. Niall only has himself to blame, if Harry's honest. He showed up with wet hair in a baggy grey jumper, jeans that look like they got shrunk and torn by accident, and a pair of boots of undeterminable colour. Everyone in the stylist studio is bustling about with more than extra vim as if they’ve recognised there’s a heathen in their presence and they need to show him the magic of the temple.

He looks good, at least, even with the tired lines near his eyes. It’s getting close to summer now despite the afternoon's weather and his face has a bit more colour to it. Nothing like the contouring tans in Beverly Hills or Harry’s own, but it suits him. He’s been going round the Sidwith offices and factories the past few weeks, Harry heard, going over the summaries and numbers in the proxy firm report. It sounds like exhausting, boring work. He has no clue what Niall is looking for, but it’s not like he’s asked. They haven’t spoken about Sidwith at all and he’s spent a month in LA monitoring the renovations to his house. The longest conversation he’s had with Niall was about kebabs, of all things.

Harry idly snacks on the veg platter and nuts, picking them out with a spoon to keep the oils off his fingers, waiting for Niall to notice he’s already there.

Lambert’s assistants get to Niall first, though, and Harry feels bad enough for him that he comes over instead.

“I thought we’re just getting a morning suit each,” Niall says, a measuring tape around his neck, the top edge skimming the curve of his Adam’s apple. 

Harry grins. “No?”

Niall is biting his lip, like he wants to laugh and scream at the same time. “We getting matching wardrobes, is that it?”

Harry fetches Lambert so they can both explain to Niall what the different clothes are for, what events he’s meant to go with Harry to, and how, sadly, they’ll have to come back and top up later in the year when winter-weight clothes are out. Harry also personally goes through the different pieces, from the everyday t-shirts to the suits, to show Niall how they’ve been picked for maximum matching potential, which is the reason why there are so few.

“So few, huh?” Niall is on his second bottle of water, drinking like he’s keeping hydrated in the depths of hell. “Well, at least I can see myself wearing this stuff. ’Guess I got lucky with this er, what d’you call it, this season’s collection.”

No one in fashion talks about seasons any more, but Lambert is smiling with the most horrid stars in his eyes. “That’s all Harry. He knew what you’d like.”

Niall surveys the racks again. “Makes sense,” he finally says. He turns to Lambert and the assistants. “We used to borrow each other’s clothes when we were little. Though that was just shorts and t-shirts, wasn’t it? Hoodies. Pyjamas that one time. Harry’s had these—”

“Okay! Enough stories for now.” 

“No, but listen, they were like cowboys but monkey cowboys and—”

“More trying on of the clothes, please.”

Harry watches Niall make everyone laugh as he’s going through the new clothes for their fit. He’s keeping one ear trained to Niall’s voice in case more embarrassing childhood memories come up and the other focused on voicemail messages about problems with the canyon-side walls of his LA house. He doesn’t know the first thing about subsidence, but the thought of the walls slowly coming down, taking his investments with them, should be really be worrying him more. Instead, he just feels kind of resigned to it, like all he can do is hand over the problem to the contractors and hope he’s in safe hands. 

Sometimes he worries his dad’s right and he’s shit at managing his life, but he's getting married and moving into a new place in two weeks, he hasn't even started packing up his flat, he’s still got to find a new cleaning service, he's got an album to cut, he—Harry stops himself, looks up at Niall, the way the new dark blue button-down makes his smile seem even brighter, and gets back to work.

Seven messages and four phone calls later, Niall comes over and sits next to him on the velvet ottoman. 

“Hey,” Harry says, clicking his phone off.

“Hello.”

He turns his head at the weird greeting and Niall is slipping his fingers under his jaw, tipping his face, and kissing him. 

It’s a closed-mouthed kiss, and only long enough for him to feel the warm press of Niall’s lips against his before Niall lets him go, but it’s like the whole room’s gone sideways.

“Since we’re trying things on,” Niall says, bright and calm.

 _Was that a triple entendre_ , Harry's brain wants to ask, but his lips won’t move and he’s too disoriented to make them.

“Gonna have to do it soon with two hundred people watching us,” Niall adds in a whisper, his eyes on the phone in Harry’s hand. “’Thought this is a good place for a little practice.” 

Harry nods mechanically, a cold clarity coming to him.

Just a double entendre, then.

It was coming anyway, having to kiss Niall or be kissed by him. Better to get turned about now by the newness of it instead of at the ceremony. 

He glances up at the studio employees huddled over the boxes and racks of clothes, where they’re pretending the kiss didn’t happen. He wonders if his pretence is as obvious as theirs. He’d like to think he’s a better actor, but there’s also no comparing the stakes.

“It’s been a very productive day,” he says slowly, stretching to get himself a bit loose. He should’ve sat in one of the armchairs. Now his back’s all wonky. “I’ll take care of the bill. You can go. They’ll send the stuff to me when it’s all ready.”

“You’re not paying for me.”

“It’s my wedding gift to you.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Indulge me, Niall,” Harry says, patting his shoulder, using him as a hold to pull himself up and standing.

#

It’s a beautiful June day. Harry’s phone is full with messages and voicemails congratulating him on the wedding. He leaves it in the suite he checked into the night before and walks the corridors, already in his trousers and waistcoat, hoping the triangle of toast he swallowed down for breakfast will finally settle in his stomach.

He stops at the windows by the lifts and moves the curtain slightly to look outside. The ceremony isn’t for another half hour, but Brook Street is full of photographers, fans, and cars lining up to drop guests off at the separate entrance to the ballroom wing. Pedestrians on their way to lunch are walking in single file along the black iron railing, likely grumbling about celebrities but also curious as to whom they’re grumbling about. He’s far from being the only one in the world who has a weird relationship with fame.

There’s been some public buzz about his wedding and the only thing he’s happy about is how it’s made the marriage seem more and more real. Until he saw how careful Tomlinson’s firm has been about its involvement, he didn’t really consider how what he and Niall have agreed to do is fraud they could possibly go to prison for. 

The media coverage has largely been trashy: articles about the exaggerated number of people he’s dated and his old broken engagement at first, articles making up random shit about Niall next because no one seems to have anything scandalous to say about him. 

Harry arranged a session with his publicist in case Niall needed some help ignoring it all, but Niall seems to genuinely not give a toss about the press. He laughed when he was shown an article about him being in contact with alleged gun runners and said the publication must have gotten the details from an old movie. When they were alone in the session, the only comment Niall made was about how he’s relieved all mention of their Sidwith connection hasn’t included talk of the company’s impending sale. He’s worried about them being able to pull it off, Harry knows. 

Taking him aside, his publicist told him there's been a rise in his back catalogue sales and social media mentions. Some radios have even been playing _If I Could Fly_ on request. It doesn’t matter that he wrote it mostly thinking about his mum, when he was missing her badly on Stepladder’s world tour, the band already not getting along, everyone being pettily cruel about every little thing. To the public, the song is all about Niall now and they love the happy ending that’s coming.

He retraces his steps to the suite, gets an earful about going missing when he needs to be downstairs, and takes one last minute to breathe in the privacy of the bathroom, dabbing his eyes with a damp cloth, trying to be careful with the makeup in case there’s no time for touch-ups. 

The service lift takes him down close to the oval room meant for final prep and he moves slowly toward it, urged on by little surges of handshakes and congratulations. The room is connected to the hall where over two-hundred people are already waiting for the ceremony to begin, but there's a delicate calm that draws him inside, past the wedding photographer and his sister, past the registrar and the hotel reps. It's like being in an egg, hermetically sealed away from the hum of the crowd, except there’s black 1920s trimming and trompe l'œil trees all along the walls.

Niall is standing with Greg and Maura, his shoulders impeccably filling the cutaway. He told Harry he would be spending the day flying yesterday. It shows. His cheeks are pinked from the sun and there’s an alertness to his posture.

“There you are,” Greg says, smiling. “We thought you’d gotten cold feet.”

“Shut it, Greg,” Niall says easily, leaving his family to walk over to Harry. “You alright?” 

Harry’s barber did a good job. Niall’s hair is cut short on the sides, the rest a soft mop styled in a deep part, the tips falling close over his right eye. Harry doesn’t know who redid the colour, but at least it doesn’t clash with his suit, which is all that matters today.

“Yeah. I’m great.” He takes the liberty of touching Niall’s boutonniere, paying attention to its small spray roses. 

“Thank you.”

He nods. “My pleasure,” he says, and then, not just because he knows Greg is listening, he adds, “You look very nice.”

“So do you.” Niall’s eyes are shining so brightly that Harry decides it’s okay to be greedy, to want to keep feeling their warmth, just for a little bit longer.

“Thank you,” he says, brushing imaginary lint off Niall’s shoulders and crisping the knot of his tie.

“Thank you,” Niall says back.

They look at each other for one quiet moment before the whirl of final prep begins, starting with the officiating registrar checking to see if all the details are correct on their certificates, and Harry feels the toast doing its job at last, muting the nerves, muting almost everything.

Then it’s just him and Niall, waiting to go on. Well, him and Niall and Maura, who hasn’t left yet for some reason. 

Harry can see her in the tall etched mirror, standing in her blue skirt suit and elegant hat, its single bow made out of a thin tidy white ribbon. She looks oddly pensive as she says something to Niall in Irish. 

“I’m good, Ma.” Niall turns to him, “Do you need the toilet? Last chance before we go up.”

“No, I’m good,” he echoes. He says to his almost-mother-in-law, “Don’t worry, Maura. We’re men now. We’ve got like, men-sized bladders.” When her jaw tightens, he realises she wasn't talking to Niall about going to the toilets, but he wants them to keep pretending so he adds, “We can hold it in if we have to. Make a run for it later.”

She shakes her head at them, a helpless smile on her face, and leaves the long way round to take her seat.

Niall watches her go, fishing something out of his inner suit pocket.

Harry raises an eyebrow at what's in Niall's hand. “We’re going up to the altar or whatever they're calling it and you’ve got your phone with you.”

“I’m just trying to show you …” Niall trails off, offering the phone to him.

On the screen there's a photo of the cellar from the top of the stairs, carpeted now, and another of a padded booth, a mixing area, the whole space set up as a studio, perfectly finished and ready to move into. Harry stops scrolling and looks up. “Niall, what did you do?"

“It's my wedding gift to you,” Niall mimics.

Harry is the one who started the wedding gift nonsense, but he wasn't serious. He didn't like the idea of Niall paying for clothes he didn't ask for, that's all. Now Niall has gone and built a music studio into his house. If anyone is ridiculous, it's him. He’s the one who has taken it a bit too far. "You're going to have to rip all of this out later."

"Jesus, Harry. Are you this much fun at Christmas too?"

Harry makes a face and hands Niall his phone back. “If your phone rings when we’re up there, I’m walking out,” he says, a recklessness bubbling up in him.

Niall rolls his eyes, tucks the phone away, and drags Harry to where they’re meant to be waiting.

Not a minute later, the glass and metal doors open, soughing across the marble. 

Niall nods at him, his face placid. Harry nods back, his face probably less than placid. There’s no time to look into another mirror. 

They step out side by side to the soft music, walking the short distance to the centre of the Art Deco hall, where the registrar is waiting for them. There’s a metal column beside her, on top of which a small porcelain bowl rests, keeping their wedding rings safe and ready. 

The atmosphere is surreal. It’s not like being on stage with sixty-thousand people watching, but the quiet is just as loud as the noise in a stadium. 

Harry can spot the faces of his friends, his family, Niall’s. He knows they’re there along with the guests someone else put on the list. He knows they’re there because he’s getting married today, to Niall of all people, who seems to be listening intently to what the registrar is saying.

He knows she’s reading the standard speeches they agreed on. 

He knows there are tears in the crowd, soft smiles, cameras, attentive eyes, arms crossing and uncrossing, waiting, waiting, waiting. 

His turn. He’s meant to say things and mean them. No, just repeat what she says. Go on. The floor is waxed so finely he can see his own reflection in it. Go on with the vows. Don’t stop. 

Keep going. Keep smiling.

Take the ring. Slip it on. Let Niall do the same. Or is it the other way round? Too late now.

No matter. He’s a husband and so is Niall. 

There’s the kiss they practiced once, and the fierce hug they didn’t, Niall’s hand around his waist, Niall’s fingers pressed into his back, gentling him.

#

Harry expected the wedding breakfast to be a drawn-out skirmish, but his sister isn’t a big name in event planning out of sheer luck and there’s a festive ease to the whole thing. His father’s guests aren’t terrorising people from the music business with remarks about record company share performances. The Sidwith bunch aren’t bleeding badly from having to explain what it is they do to tablemates who don’t even read the safety instructions on the back of airplane seats.

He also expected no real speeches, what with there being no best men or women. But Gemma surprises him again, her team flooding in with a paper-thin tablet for every guest, a party favour preloaded with a link to a video stream about him and Niall.

Coos spread around the ballroom when the first video pops up. Harry recognises the holiday house in Cornwall, the navy blue trim on its baseboards and mouldings. In the background, Gemma and Greg are playing just outside the kitchen door. Niall is sat at the table and Harry on the floor. Suddenly, he’s calling out for Niall, who carefully gets off his chair, the large picture book in his hand banging against the side of the table and his own head. It takes him a few moments before he’s waddling to sit by Harry. Wordlessly, Harry leans on Niall and continues playing with his toy airplane while Niall gets back to his book, the video fading out. 

“That’s about right,” Niall says loudly, his voice carrying across the ballroom, making their guests laugh.

The stream switches to a shot of him and Niall napping together on a bed, a colourful quilt draped over them, sunlight making the room glow. Harry thinks it was taken in the summer after his dad left his mum. Niall was telling him all August that divorce was fine. That divorce was really just about living in two houses and making sure you have things in both or you’d always have to carry them around with you, really neat or you’d forget them and leave them in the house you’re not staying in.

There’s more cooing around the room, but Harry hears sniffling at one of the tables he’s keeping track of. It’s Spencer, whom Harry has always thought of as imperturbable. He wonders if Spencer is thinking of the twins, or if he’s been struck by a memory from his own childhood. Nick drapes a hug around his husband, amused and loving at the same time.

Music draws Harry’s back to the tablet. It’s a video of Niall and Bobby dancing with each other. "Greg's wedding," Niall says to him when he looks over, as if he’s asking for a narration instead of checking to see if Niall’s all right because he’s feeling an ache in his own chest, knowing that not even a year after that dance, Bobby was gone. 

Harry doesn’t have time to say anything before he’s struck by photos of Niall in the audience at a Stepladder gig, himself singing on stage, bent over the standing mic. It’s their show at the Castle, the one he didn’t even know Niall had been to. If he’d known, if he’d seen that Niall smiling up at him, face damp from standing in the crush, maybe it would’ve been different between them. Maybe it’s Niall he’d have gone home with that night and he’d never have let Niall go.

But that’s not what happened. They weren’t really at uni together, were they, except for the day Niall took him up on the plane. 

He doesn’t remember Niall taking a photo of him that afternoon, but there it is. He’s stood by the Aquila in his shearling coat, hands shoved deep into his pockets, looking so fucking happy because he didn’t know what was to come. 

“And then the little cherub disappears for years!” Gemma says, turning to address Niall, who’s shrugging and grinning even though Harry can see his right hand under the table rigid over his thigh. “How could you, Niall? Leave my brother on his own to get up to all sorts of trouble.” 

Harry ducks his head, pretending to take a sip of water, and comes back up with a smile on his face. 

The stream shows photos of Niall around the world, in the Americas, Africa, Asia, the Pacific. There’s also a clip from the documentary Ben mentioned, Niall’s hair its natural colour. 

When Harry glances over at Niall to ask him about the hair, return some levity between them, Niall is staring at a group of people by the doors to the hall. 

Gemma makes a joke about Harry becoming half American and he hears Jeff mock-apologising to her. Harry looks back at the tablet and sees photos of himself at a party in Malibu, footage of the Grammys the one time he was nominated hence the only time he didn’t win, then shots of him back in London dancing around being an idiot.

Harry surveys the tables and finds Ben grinning at him. He understands now why the compilation feels so familiar. Ben did a Stepladder video that used their private photos for the same sort of editing.

Gemma sighs dramatically. “But here we are today.”

There’s an old photograph of Maura and his mum sitting on a sofa, looking at whoever is taking the snap, their heads framed by the gnarled tree branches visible through the wide window behind them. Niall and Harry are sat diapered in their laps, looking at each other with smiling baby faces. The old photo fades into a photo of Harry and Niall on the ottoman at Lambert’s studio. After the kiss, Harry thinks, their faces still so close together, his own fingers like claws around his phone.

“Niall and Harry Styles-Horan, ladies and gentlemen. Then and now. Now and forever,” she says, toasting them with a raised glass. 

It feels as if everything that happened in their lives was meant to lead to today, their wedding day. It’s Gemma's magic, why she’s so good at what she does, turning the mundane into something special, happenstance into fate.

But Harry knows the truth. So does Niall. 

“She did a good job,” Niall says under his smile, taking a sip of champagne and clapping with the rest of the room.

Harry nods, following suit. He waits until the clapping has died down before getting up for the lav. There’s still the cake to cut and he could use another breather, a cold towel to his face.

He’s just getting swept up in it, he tells himself, staring at the mirror in the cloakroom. It’s easy to fall for someone who feels familiar and new at the same time, like a cherished dream come true. But he’s never wished he and Niall were fated to be together. He’s never wanted Niall to look at him and say there’s nowhere else he’d rather be, no one else he’d rather be with. He doesn’t prefer the fantasy to the truth, even though it would be nice if the truth could be a little different. 

He crosses paths with Ben when he's turning into the rotunda on the way back to the party.

“Hey. Fuck. Thank you for coming,” he says, pulling him into a hug. 

Ben thumps his back. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world, mate.” 

“Did you help Gemma with that montage?”

“How did you know?” he laughs.

Harry shakes his head. “Your style’s gotten weepy in your old age,” he says, and steps in for another hug. “Thank you. It’s a nice gift.” 

“For the man who has everything.”

“Weepy,” Harry points out, patting Ben’s chest and letting him go make the same run he just did.

The hall leading to the ballroom is hushed, all the chairs from the ceremony cleared away now, the mirrored pedestals back in their places, holding cream vases filled high with white flowers. A few guests are milling about in quiet conversation, faces flushed from drink.

Niall is off to one side, in an embrace with a guy Harry doesn’t recognise. Their foreheads are touching and the guy’s hands are all over Niall’s shoulders. 

He feels his face hardening, not quite sure what’s happening, or why it’s happening in such a public place, but other people have seen him and there's no turning back. He has to join in even though it’s not his place to.

When he gets closer, he can see Niall's hand clasping the back of the guy's neck. They draw apart slightly, just to look at each other with fucking tears in their eyes. And then they’re laughing.

"Hello, Harry," the guy says when Harry gets to them and they step back from each other, the embrace broken. "It’s been ages, mate. Good to see you again."

“Hey, uh, hello.” He has no idea where or when they’ve met before.

Niall turns to a waiter collecting glasses from one of the corner tables. “Could you get Geoff and Karen Payne, please? Tell them their son Liam is here."

Liam’s face splits into a grin. "Oh brilliant,” he says, his puppy dog eyes lighting up. “I was hoping I'd see my parents here."

"Looking for a ride up to Wolverhampton?"

"I’ve only got a forty-eight hour leave,” Liam laughs. “I've spent nineteen of it getting here. I have ten hours left before I have to make my way back again."

Harry senses Liam has no idea the effect his words are having on Niall. 

He wonders if Liam is RAF. Maybe he’s one of Niall’s old air squadron mates from uni. 

Harry doesn’t think he’s the joker Harry waved at in Barton that day Niall took him up in the Aquila, but maybe he is. 

"Thank you very much for coming, Liam,” he says. “It means a lot, to the both of us."

"Yeah,” Niall agrees, clearing his throat. “Yeah, you're a star, Leemo."

Liam cuffs Niall lightly on the arm. “You know, I never understood why you begged for that first Aquila R-38 off the assembly line. That wasn’t you at all. But I get it now.” 

“It was promised to me,” Niall argues, laughing.

“Yeah, but not two months before the delivery date!” Liam says, laughing too. “That’s unheard of, you know that, don’t you?”

“Your dad came through for me, though.”

The pieces in Harry’s mind click into place. Geoff Payne heads the manufacturing division at Sidwith. Harry doesn’t remember Liam at all, but they must have met when they were kids.

“And look where the two of you are now,” Liam says, gazing happily at both him and Niall. “So you were doing a bit of flying and romancing, eh? You could’ve said.”

Niall groans just like all the other times today when people cracked jokes and made innuendoes about them.

Harry slowly unclenches his jaw and smiles. 

The plane Liam’s dad got out early for Niall was the Aquila in Manchester. Harry is dead certain Niall didn’t make Geoff do it for anyone else but himself. 

It’s a good bit of revisionist history, though, and there’s a market for that today. 

After the cake, the drinks flowed harder and faster, the rowdier of their friends and family setting up camp at the horseshoe bar and calling up anyone who wants to pop by. Des drops in for a breezy round of whiskey in the early evening before departing, probably back to his lair in the City. Harry walks him to his car and driver, and not just because he did the same for his mum and Chris earlier.

Gemma suggested throwing a party along with supper when they were sorting out the wedding, but Harry vetoed it. Somehow they’re ending the day entertaining a small crowd anyway in the penthouse suite they’ve got for the night. 

They order hot sandwiches for everyone and the hotel sends up what’s left of the wedding cake too, the top tier with the two grooms still standing – saved for their first baby’s christening, as tradition would have it, but useless for them – and slices of the other tiers arranged to make a platter. Harry thinks the platter looks like a scene from one of his favourite movies growing up where the animal characters have nowhere to go because the ice is breaking up all under them. They manage to float on, the pieces of ice getting smaller and smaller, not all of them surviving to the end. The difference is the cake isn’t exactly white and ice is white. And the grooms are human but they’re animals in the movie and not married. 

Harry thinks he’s possibly a little bit drunk.

Niall is in the suite, chatting with anyone and everyone, a beer in his hand, and then he isn’t. Harry spends another hour slowly sobering up, trying not to miss notes on the piano so he can do justice to his guests’ singing.

It’s late when Gemma and her new boyfriend are the last to leave.

He’s finally alone for the first time since his morning walk along the corridors.

He goes to the master bedroom and finds his holdall there along with Niall’s. He grabs his, takes it to the other bedroom, and fishes for his phone, looks to see if he’s missed anything. It takes him a while to get through the messages and emails. He’s replying to the only urgent one he found when he hears the door to the suite opening. 

“It’s not gonna be all that different, you know? The Falcon is the Falcon. But the fuselage needs to be lighter if they can manage it,” Niall is saying. “I’m not an engineer. Half the time I don’t know what you guys are on about, but—”

“'Course, Ni.” That’s Liam with him, affectionate, reassuring, a bit breathless. “Just show it to me. I’ll let you know what I think.” 

It sounds as if they’re setting up with a computer in the dining room. Back to work, then. 

Harry finishes writing his email to the sounds of them digging into what’s left of the food as they babble on about new materials and speed and whatever else. 

Liam either gets really, really excited about airplane design or he’s surviving on an ungodly amount of caffeine. 

Niall’s laughter makes Harry think they’ve had similar late nights before. He wonders where they were on those nights. If they’ve been good friends all these years, the sort who share a passion for something and know each other intimately because of it.

He puts his phone down and gets changed into the striped silk pyjamas his mum bought for him – as a joke gift or a real wedding gift, he’s still not quite sure, but he promised her he’d wear them. He usually sleeps in the nude and it’s probably something he should ease Niall into.

“When you gonna be done with the RAF and design some planes for me?” he hears Niall ask when he’s at the doorway, about to come out for a glass of water and catch the views from the terrace before bed.

Liam draws up, his face frozen in surprise. “Are you at Sidwith full-time now? Oh god. Is this it? Are you full on settling down? Is this the end of an era?” 

Niall is walking to the other bedroom. Harry can’t see his face, can’t tell what he’s saying without saying it. 

“Oh, come on, Niall,” Liam laughs. “You can’t ask me to stick around and do nine-to-five at Sidwith if you’re not going to either.” 

Harry considers just going to bed, but his body deserves hydration and he does want to see the views. He hasn’t seen them after nightfall. 

He says hi to Liam when he’s pouring himself a glass of water. 

Liam doesn’t look guilty about being in the suite still, but Harry doubts Niall has told him about them.

“Packing in a consult before you have to go?”

“Yeah,” Liam laughs. “I should be trying to sleep, but this is more fun.”

It’s not that Harry is interested in whatever’s on the computer and scribbled on sheets of hotel stationery. He just thinks he should pretend in case he’s meant to be. 

He has no idea what he’s looking at, though. 

“So it’s the um, Falcon?”

“Bits of it, yeah.”

“Is that you?” he points to the _PL_ s on the scribbles. “Like songwriting credits, your surname first,” he elaborates when Liam raises his eyebrows, confused. 

Liam laughs, but it oddly doesn’t feel like Liam is laughing at him. 

“No. It’s how you mark mating faces in engineering drawings,” Liam tells him. “It stands for _parting line_ because when you cast the piece, there’s going to like, be a line all along there.”

Liam’s eyes have lit up and Harry doesn’t really want to stand for ten minutes listening to a lecture while Niall takes his time in the bog or whatever it is he’s up to. “Oh. Okay. Cool,” he says, turning for the terrace. 

“Wait. Let me show you.”

Liam grabs one of the grooms from the cake and shows him the long thin mark along the body where its two halves were joined in the casting. “So this scar is the parting line, but here it’s been cleaned up. To make it look nice. But for the fuselage,” he goes back to the scribbles, “you don’t want to clean up the flash – the stuff left over after the casting – because the seal is stronger when the rough bits stay.”

Harry nods and smiles, catching sight of Niall walking out of his bedroom. “Cool. I’ll remember that.”

He leaves them and steps out onto the terrace with his half-drunk glass. 

It’s a warm night. He sits on one of the metal chairs facing southeast, slinks down so he can rest his head. 

There’s a white haze in the sky. He can sort of make out the stars and their inky blue backdrop further away, but the best views are of London, her dark rooftops sleeping, crouching, leaning, leaping down to the river to meet her flashy landmarks.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting there when Niall follows him outside. 

“Hey,” he says, his eyes fixed on the Shard.

"That was a good party," Niall says after a moment.

"Yeah." 

Harry sits up in the silence. 

He deposits his glass, badly smudged, on the table. The stains are a fake skin colour. He checks his palms and sees his foundation all over them. With his fingertips, he wipes at his mouth and lashes in case they’re a mess too.

“Harry.” He looks at Niall then, hearing a sadness in his voice. 

Niall is still in his trousers and shirt but he’s shoeless, his pale blue socks almost as bleached as the terrace floor. 

“I hoped you wouldn’t regret this. Maybe you’re already regretting it. I dunno. But I’ll do everything to make it easy for you. I’m pretty easy to live with. I—”

“Niall,” Harry stops him. “I’m fine. I’m just like, exhausted. I think I just like, fell asleep and drooled all over myself.” 

“Ah.”

Harry gets up. “There’s nothing to regret, is there? We’re doing a good thing,” he says. “Besides, it’s like, not for forever. It’s not really until death do us part, is it?” 

Niall nods, and when Harry passes him, he says, “Thank you.” 

“Stop thanking me,” Harry laughs. 

"Are you off to bed?"

"Yeah."

“Sweet dreams.”

He should’ve gone to bed ages ago. “You too,” he says, stepping back inside.

He crosses the sitting room and sees Niall through the wall-to-wall glass window, his figure cut up into pieces by the grids of its black iron frame: the rolled-up sleeves in one pane, the hands in another, the socked feet on the ground at the bottom. 

Harry doesn’t have to check the topmost pane to know. Niall is looking up at the sky, seeing exactly where all the stars are.

#


	2. once a thing's done

Despite Harry’s misgivings about the sham marriage, Niall has been true to his word. He’s easy to live with and there’s always food in the fridge, even if Harry sticks to what Sam has bought for him because he’s pants at cooking. They use the box room as a shared walk-in, Harry’s clothes and things taking up three-quarters of the space without him hearing a thing about it. Niall swaps his single for a pull-out sofa bed, always put away neatly before anyone else comes to the house, so that his bedroom passes as a home office and the occasional guest room for the guests they’ll never have. He spends his days with his planes or away on Sidwith business and Harry puts all the hours he has into working on the album in town. 

When they see each other, it’s mostly if he happens to be up early enough or they’re both in the house in time for dinner, the sky still light outside. Niall is handy with the grill he set up on the back terrace and Harry likes his burgers, although he doubts he’ll ever acquire the taste for grilled pineapple squished in between the meat and the cheese. 

The weeks of summer roll by in a kind of calm, with work and routine muting the messiest of his thoughts, until, in late August, he forgets to lock the bathroom door. 

Niall stands with his mouth gaping open, blinking furiously, before he says, “That’s a lot of tattoos.” 

“Yeah?” Harry spits into the sink, one hand holding up the white towel wrapped round his hair. “Which one’s your favourite?” It’s his standard reply to that particular remark. Maybe slightly less cool than usual, what with the toothpaste foam dribbling out of the side of his mouth.

“Raise your arms and turn around,” Niall says, “slowly.”

Before Harry knows it, he’s wiping his mint-tickled mouth and doing as he’s told, his heartbeat carrying up and down him. He’s been careful about being dressed around the house, even when the temperature hit thirty earlier in the month and all he wanted to do was walk around with nothing on. He spent two nights in the cellar just to take advantage of the AC. If he’d known Niall wouldn’t care about seeing him naked, he wouldn’t have bothered. 

Niall cackles and Harry stops, dives back into the sink to rinse his toothbrush before putting it on the charger. “Niall, it’s rude to laugh when you’re looking at someone’s naked body.”

“Sorry. Sorry. It’s not—I’m not laughing at you,” Niall says, slinking in. Harry grabs another towel and secures it around his waist. “But if you got a car in the cage, you’d have a perfect pun.”

Harry looks down at the birdcage on his left rib. “Why?”

“The carib. It’s a hummingbird.”

“And everyone says I have the shittiest jokes,” he sniffs.

The smile goes from Niall’s mouth, but not from his eyes, the blues darkening. Harry’s body suddenly feels too damp, too hot, the beat of his heart all wrong. 

“Is that right? Well, not when you’re with me.”

Harry shifts his gaze to the rolls of loo paper just beyond Niall’s elbow, arranged in a pyramid on top of the toilet’s cistern. He knows it wasn’t him who stacked them. It must be Niall’s handiwork, Niall who’s neat and easy to live with. All the seams where each roll would start to unfurl are tucked away, a finger’s width apart from the wall, safe from the damp he’s caused with his shower. 

He hears Niall cough. “Sorry, but are you done? I need a wee.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Harry scoots around him to walk out. “Sorry. All done.” 

He’s closing the door when Niall puts his hand on it and pokes his face into the gap, smiling softly. “Forgot to say, I like them. I like all of them.”

Harry bites his lip, not wanting to say anything. 

It’s stupid to feel pleased. Some of his tattoos are great, but the rest really aren’t. Niall can’t possibly like all of them, especially the one that spells B-I-G on his big toe, without knowing their history, years and years’ worth of it. He pulls the door shut, turning the tricky handle until the lock clicks.

He gets dressed and books himself a trip to LA where he spends September with his songs and Ryan, looking for a sound he doesn’t have. He wants to hear the way his body felt like night, the way the rush of blood all over his skin felt like a smearing of light. He doesn’t want to explain it with words, but none of the music he’s hearing can help him. When he gives in after a week of frustration, Ryan only claps him on the back and the work finally begins.

It feels good having the album grow again, grounding his life with its weight. The thought of staying on through October, maybe getting a couple more songs done, is really tempting. The work left over on his property is mostly to do with interior decoration and putting the garden back for tenancy, both noiseless jobs according to his project manager. He can imagine moving out of the hotel and into his guesthouse, enjoying the pool and the views until he has to let them go. 

There’s no shortage of people to have coffee or meals with either, and with his marriage to Niall being old news after his visits throughout the summer, the conversations are well open, easy. He’d kind of forgotten how fun LA could be.

The rags put out a few standard articles about him being seen with old flames, but Jeff’s team says it’s to his advantage and he knows Niall doesn’t care. He’s not fucking around anyway. Not even with people who’ll keep quiet about a fling or a one-off. He’s not chancing anything. It’s a glass dome he’s living under now that he’s back in the limelight. 

If there’s something he feels bad about, it’s ignoring Gemma’s calls about Greg, who is on the campaign trail and has decided he’d start with her. In her latest message, she said her plans to avoid seeing him were foiled when he ‘bumped into her’ in London and it’s clear he’s going to spend all his time until the February vote trying to change their minds. She also told him not to wait until Greg comes out to LA to find him and ended by rather tersely wondering if he hasn’t already been away from Niall long enough. 

He texts her saying he wants to hang around a little longer because his house is almost done and ready to be put on the market. It’s not a lie. In the second week of October, he meets with the realtor and the decorator who’s already started staging the house for showings. 

None of the stuff in the house is his, but as they go from room to room, starting in the guesthouse, he can see how she’s styled the house to make it seem as if he’s just left it for his friends to use. She’s brought out the sixties aesthetic of the house a bit more, too, so everything flows but only in the way movies do.

If he moves back in, it would be weird to live in a kind of movie set, but it’s not all that different from staying in a hotel, or a cottage in the country made up to look like a married couple’s. 

They go through to the main house using the upper walkway between it and the guesthouse. There’s a lounge about halfway up, with retractable glass panels facing the canyon. He can’t remember what used to be there. Furniture for dozing and fucking, probably, because he does remember doing both with the room open to the night air, music playing on the sound system, a bin of blankets for covering up nearby. 

Now it has a couple of club chairs, a bar trolley, and a ridiculous telescope. On one of the cocktail tables is a fanned stack of vintage Air Pictorial magazines, a plane in flight on each cover, the blue sky behind it contrasting with the iconic red banner. 

It’s the decorator’s idea of a dashing pilot’s den. An editorial choice she made because he’s married to one and his supposed life is as much for rent as the house is.

He has the wildest urge to get Niall on video chat so he can show him the room and make him laugh at the sheer absurdity of it. He pulls out his phone, eying the decorator and realtor. They’re both staring out into the canyon, but they’d definitely notice if Niall starts going off. It’s kind of impossible to not notice Niall’s laugh even when it’s tinny.

He tucks his phone away, wandering for a while before he remembers that Niall has never been in the house. He would have no idea what any of the rooms looked like before and about the ridiculousness of them now.

They finish the tour in the kitchen, all its appliances newly updated, its doors open to the terrace and the pool. Harry sits at the breakfast bar and signs the documents on their tablets to put his approval down in writing. 

He’s always loved the way sunlight enters and crosses the kitchen slowly during the day, the way it bathes the dark stone, the honey-coloured wood, and anyone who gets caught in it, cooking, eating, waiting for the espresso machine to be done. 

It’s the only room unedited with stuff that could be his and Niall’s, but somehow he can picture Niall there with him, laughing, collapsed on the counter, head lolling over his extended arm, an empty glass of juice in his hand. Niall’s shoulders are shaking the rest of him and his bracelets push apart, showing where his skin has been shielded from the sun. 

Harry knows then that it’s just an image from when they were kids, transposed from Cornwall to LA by a mad, sentimental brain. 

When he pops by the hotel after lunch, he tells the front desk he’ll be checking out at the end of the week and texts Gemma to let her know he’s going back to London.

#

His sister doesn’t waste any time. She’s at the house the morning after he arrives, loaded up with bribe coffee from Ginger & White and hardcopies of stuff he can’t just pretend to be reading whilst actually scrolling down his social media feeds.

Niall looks impressed and stays at home instead of going to the airfield. He makes them eggs and toast, and more toast. Harry had no bread at all in LA and the buttery crunch is keeping him afloat. 

By the second hour, though, he starts to flag and there’s no coffee left. He doesn’t think he can read any more Overviews, or Acts, or whatever capitalised important Thing they want him to know about. 

He’s whinging a bit and Niall gets up to work on the coffee machine, whacking him on the head with an empty folder as he passes by. 

“But it’s like, we have four months until the vote, don’t we? Do we really have to meet now?” Harry asks, rubbing his head but mainly for show. “ _He_ knows and _we_ know he’s outnumbered. Can’t we wait until the traditional family Christmas where we stuff ourselves silly and scream at each other afterwards?” 

There’s a hard pinch into his side. He swallows down his yelp when he catches the scandalised look on Gemma’s face. He doesn’t know what he said, but he knows it wasn’t good.

“I just …” he trails off, chastened. “I don’t even know what a proxy firm is still.”

“They do research about the best choices a company can make and present it in a report. What we need is for them to recommend the Lampardi bid so the board of directors will have to get it tabled for voting next year, and then we’ll be able to vote for it. Otherwise, the only thing we can do is vote down the DAE offer. We don’t want that. We don’t want anyone looking for other ways to force a sale,” Gemma tells him. “Can we have more toast, Niall?” 

“Yeah. 'Course,” Niall says. He turns and leans on his side against the counter, looking at them both as he drops more bread into the toaster. “I heard the firm Des ordered to do the new report is coming out against the original report. If I’ve heard about that, Greg must have too. It’s why he’s pushing for a meet before the new one is out. Make all his arguments for the DAE offer before there’s another one saying the opposite. He probably has an idea, but he doesn’t know for sure the three of us have already agreed on how we’re gonna vote.” 

“Christ,” Harry groans. “If we’re gonna have to meet again after the new report is out, let’s make this one quick. Please.” 

As it turns out, the meeting doesn’t last more than fifteen minutes, the first five of it just Gemma making chit chat and Greg asking them, eyes twinkling, how they’re settling into married life.

“Look, Greg, you already know how I’m voting,” Niall says, ignoring his brother’s question. “There’s absolutely no way I’m supporting twelve-thousand people losing their jobs.” 

“I’m with Niall,” Harry puts in, licking Chinese barbecue sauce off the corner of his mouth. He and Niall stopped for a bite before heading down to the meeting at Sidwith’s London office. No one told him he still had bits of the tofu momo on his face. “Why would we go for DAE’s offer when there’s another offer that’s going to leave those jobs untouched?”

Greg gives Niall an irritated look. “I understand trying to appeal to the heart, Niall, but I wish you’d stop this rubbish about job losses being a given.” 

“The heart?” Gemma laughs. “Please, Greg. DAE’s history of acquisitions speaks for itself,” she says. “We all know what they do to the companies they buy. If there’s no room in their offer for a guarantee of the security of those jobs, I’m not interested.”

“Gem, we’ve been over this. You know how important flexibility is in today’s market. They’ve put together this offer very carefully, as you can imagine,” Greg says, and what Harry imagines is Greg at fourteen, trying to make him believe no one will know if one or two of Niall’s pain pills go missing. “They’ll do their best for everyone involved, but they’re not in a position to make guarantees. They have their own shareholders to think about.”

“Okay. That sounds like bullshit to me, but okay,” Harry says and takes a sip of the coffee he got from the catering table in the conference room.

Niall gives him a little shake of the head, looking as if he’s trying hard not to smile. 

“It might sound like bullshit because you don’t know how this industry works, Harry.”

When Greg made them wait before the meeting, Gemma stayed on the phone with one of her clients and Niall was chatting with other Sidwith employees based in the office. Harry could see how into the shop talk they all were, just like Liam Payne except with less caffeine and more sleep. 

“I don’t,” he admits, “but our people are good, aren’t they? They care about the company too, about the work that’s being done. We should take the company to the buyer who cares about them.”

“The proxy firm—”

“Not this again,” Niall says. “That report is useless and it will be even more useless when the new report comes out.”

Greg looks angry now, his shoulders hunched tight. “That’s all you, isn’t it? Causing trouble because you think you’re doing good by going against DAE.”

“Go on. Tell me I’m not.”

The steel in Niall’s low voice makes Harry sit up. Niall and Greg have probably had the same argument many times over, but he’s never been party to it before.

“They are not responsible for what people do with their products, Niall. Do you honestly think people haven’t used our planes for causes you don’t agree with? Sidwith was built on the back of fighter planes, for god’s sake, and—”

“Our families sold off the Peregrines, Greg,” Gemma cuts in. 

“And we’ve still got military contracts for trainer aircrafts, don’t we?” Greg barrels through. “Don’t tell me you don’t know,” he adds. “If morality is so important to you, how are you rationalising that, then?”

Harry doesn’t have an answer. He takes a quick look at Gemma, sees her carefully blank face, and turns to Niall.

“Those are meant only for training pilots how to fly,” Niall says. “We’re very specific about that.” 

“What do you think those pilots do after they’re trained?” 

“Whatever they do, it’s not with Sidwith planes.”

“Niall,” Greg chuckles, “we’re in the age of intercontinental UAVs and you’re worried about our planes being used in war.”

There’s a strange hardness to Niall’s eyes, as if he’s walling up because he’s bracing for something. 

“So why do they want to buy us?” Harry jumps in despite wanting to step back and busy himself with getting more coffee. “If what we make isn’t going to be useful to them, why do they want any of it?” 

“I’m sure Greg knows more than I do, but the planes are all adaptable and they’re useful as they are. Handy for support when the airspace is relatively secure. Good as mobile hotspots during operations.” 

“This is—”

“Not to mention the testing we’ve been doing with the Swedes on parts made with additive manufacturing these past ten years. That’s the direction you’ve taken R&D towards, isn’t it, Greg? That’s what you’ve got DAE interested in. They’ve been working on that too. It’s what they want the future to be. Aircrafts adapting in flight, ready for god knows what you want them for,” Niall says. “If he could see you now, Da would be ashamed of you,” he spits out. 

Greg looks as guilty as he did standing with Niall’s bottle of pain pills all those years ago, but he laughs. “I’m not the one who cares about shame, no? That’s you, Niall. That’s always been you.”

Niall’s face turns ashen. He gets up slowly. "I want my planes bringing people food, their loved ones, shit they buy on the internet, not bombs, not their children dead with just an arm and a hand to bury." 

Harry stares up at Niall, struck by the hollowness in his voice. He doesn’t even notice that Gemma has got to her feet too. "I'm not voting for an offer that won't secure those jobs," she says, following Niall out the door.

“And what about you?” Greg turns to him.

Something older and heavier than the moment, than himself, rises in Harry. “You know what, Greg, I'm glad Gemma never looked twice at you because you’re kind of a dick,” he says calmly. “Still, you’re my brother-in-law now, aren’t you, cos I fell in love with him. We’re properly family now, aren’t we? It’s why we’re voting as a block, don’t you think?” He wipes the corner of his mouth with his fist and stands. “So, fuck morals, fuck those jobs, and fuck whatever else you want to argue about. It’s three-to-one you lose.”

He walks out feeling like he’s gotten a lifetime’s worth of too-late comebacks off his chest, cheap hyperbole and all, but the relief doesn’t last. 

For days after the meeting, Niall is withdrawn and scarce around the house. Harry has to hear about Panshanger being reopened from the postman when it should have been Niall’s big news. 

Gemma reckons it’s because Niall has seen some terrible things abroad and is probably reliving them after the argument at the meeting. She might be right, but he can still see Niall’s ashen face, as if Greg had reopened a deep wound. 

Harry comes back to the house early one evening with seasonal pumpkin spice latte as a gift and asks before he loses his nerve, “Niall, what—What did Greg mean, about you and shame?”

Niall exhales, glancing at the coffee cup as if he can’t trust it any more. 

“I’m willing to forgive Greg a lot of things, but not all those jobs gone, not Bobby’s legacy sunk into that filthy operation,” he says after Harry thought he wouldn’t actually answer. “Greg, on the other hand, thinks I live my life as if I hate myself, that whatever I do is about me trying to make up for the fact that I’m gay because Bobby would never have approved if he’d known.” A helpless anger flares up in Harry, but he waits. “I don’t think Greg understands we queers can be happy with ourselves.” 

“What d’you mean, Bobby would never have approved? He wasn’t like that.” Harry thinks of Niall as someone who believes the best in people, but maybe after years of Greg fucking with his head, some of the poison has got through.

“Well,” Niall starts, and lets out a bitter laugh. “It’s easy to put words in a dead man’s mouth.” 

“Bobby wasn’t like that,” Harry insists, in case the doubt in Niall’s voice is actually real.

Niall glances out the kitchen windows, fingers toying with the lid on the takeaway coffee cup. “I don’t think he was, but I’ll never be absolutely sure, will I? It’s not like I ever got the chance to tell him.” 

“He was the nicest, kindest person I knew growing up,” Harry argues. “He was the best father. He—” 

“Harry, listen to me. You don’t need to tell me. I already know. All of this is just me and Greg not getting along. It’s not about Bobby at all.” 

But there’s a sadness in Niall, Harry can feel it, and Niall doesn’t care enough about his brother to be sad about him. “How can you believe that if Bobby were still here, he wouldn’t be okay with you liking guys? Or that like, he would’ve been against us getting married?”

“If Bobby were alive right now, we wouldn’t have needed to get married.”

Harry breathes out the stupid interfering ache in his chest and says, “Okay. But you’d have wanted to marry someone at some point. Or like, introduce him to Bobby. Have them get to know each other.” 

“And maybe Bobby would’ve hated him,” Niall says, quiet.

Harry wishes he could take Niall into his arms, find good things to tell him that wouldn’t just sound like Harry’s own words put into Bobby’s mouth. “Niall. You can’t really think that.”

Niall shrugs and finishes his drink. “There’s no point in thinking about it at all,” he says, binning the cup. 

“Niall.”

“Thanks for the coffee,” he adds, and leaves before Harry could at least ask him about the work at Panshanger and whatever he’s busy doing to get the Sidwith hangar set up again. 

Harry wakes up the next morning wondering if they should cancel on the benefit they’re scheduled to go to. It’s the first event they’re meant to attend together, but he can go alone if his publicist insists on him being there. He doubts Niall would be up for the cameras and attention.

When he steps into the box room, though, to grab a clean jumper warm enough for a walk in the valley, Niall is inside, looking through the suits they’d picked up at Lambert’s. 

“Hey.”

“'Morning,” Niall says, glancing at him. “Which one am I wearing tonight? I’m gonna have to take it to the office and meet you there.” 

“You don’t have to come if you’re not up for it.”

“No. We should have a night out.”

“Okay,” Harry says, the finality in Niall’s voice drawing him to the clothes. They’re not meant to look matched, but there are outfits in the box room that Lambert put together so he and Niall complement each other. He hands Niall his, along with the right shoes, and goes to find the invites.

#

He’s been at the London Coliseum two hours, smiling for the photographers and the people taking selfies, getting a little drunk, not knowing when Niall is going to show up because he stopped trying him after the first call went to voicemail.

It’s not that he minds. He’s surrounded by old friends and the food tastes delicious, the champagne is delicious, everyone is smelling delicious. But it would be nice to have heard from Niall by now.

“I know, popstar, I know,” Nick says. “Let’s get a bit more food in you, yeah?”

“He’s been a bit sad, Nick. But he shouldn’t be. His dad wouldn’t have hated me. His dad loved me.”

“Of course he did.” Nick pats his back and gives him a tiny plate of tiny dumplings. 

There’s dancing after that, more silly posing for photos, and Kendall being weird with his shirt, which is when he decides he needs to cut himself off, down a double espresso. 

He’s waiting for his coffee when Niall brushes up against him, cheeks flushed. “I’m sorry, sorry, sorry,” he says, leaning closer. “We got an advanced copy of the new report. All good news for the Lampardi bid. Recommended one-hundred percent. Tommo bought everyone a round and there was no way I could leave without doing the same.”

“It’s fine, Niall.” Smiling wide, Harry pulls him into a hug, happy for the company, happy for him. “Congratulations.”

They bump sideways into the bar and Niall breaks away, smiling too. He rubs his nose and fixes his tie. “Yeah, I suppose we should congratulate ourselves. What you drinking?”

“Uh, espressos right now, but I can switch back to champagne.”

“Later,” Niall says, and orders a black coffee.

Harry waits for him to finish it before taking him to meet people. Niall talks to them one by one, sounding as if he’s genuinely giving them all his attention. Maybe he is. Maybe he already read the second proxy firm report before he came.

“Isn’t that the woman you were in the tabs with last month?” Niall asks, nodding in Kendall’s direction.

“Yeah,” Harry replies, rolling his eyes about the articles. “We dated ages ago. We’re um, still friends.”

“Am I getting introduced?”

“If you want to,” Harry says, but Niall is already walking toward her.

It’s not that awkward. Cara is there too, and more people join in after her, and frankly, it’s not as if he and Niall are actually together. If he should’ve kept Niall and Kendall apart, it’d be only because they’re not people who will ever be friends. They’re too different.

He’s pretty comfortable, though, leaning against Niall, who’s got an arm solidly round his waist. He’d probably be dozing if it weren’t for the double espresso. 

“So did you like, get into the culture when you were in Africa?” someone asks.

“Which culture?” Niall asks back, his smile perfectly friendly. “I lived in Botswana, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda …”

“Oh, I went on safari in Kenya a few years ago,” Kendall says.

“Was that when you went too?” Niall turns to him.

“No,” Harry says, and realises he kind of shouted his reply. “I went like, when I was still at school. Didn’t I send you the photos? I must’ve. There was one of Gemma with lion shit.”

“Oh yeah,” Niall laughs, doubling over, his grip around Harry’s waist tightening so Harry has to steady them both with a hand on his shoulder. “I loved that!”

The conversation devolves into animal shit stories, Cara taking the lead and grinning at him all the while.

When they at last get to sit down, at Nick’s empty table near the giant chandelier, Niall asks, “Was she one of the ones you almost married?”

“Who?” 

“Kendall.”

“Um, no. And I only almost got married once.”

“Don’t get stroppy,” Niall says, sipping his beer. “It’s hard keeping up with celebrity gossip.”

Harry doubts Niall has ever tried keeping up with celebrity gossip. They’ve been living in two different worlds, really. The news about his is pretty inconsequential compared to the news about Niall’s. "You must think we're all like, pretty ridiculous," he says. "And we are."

"I don't think you're ridiculous." Niall huffs a laugh. "You should see what we get up to when we’ve—Harry, I don't think you're ridiculous."

Maybe Niall is purposefully misunderstanding him. "You can talk to me. If you ever want to,” Harry tells him. “The children you mentioned. The things you don't want our tech to be part of. You saw all of that, didn't you?"

Niall looks at him silently for a moment, a gentle smile on his face. "This charity stuff, don’t let anyone tell you it doesn’t count. People care more about things they see more of. In the news, on social media, wherever. Even if it only saves a couple of lives, it still counts."

“I hope we make it through the vote and the sale,” Harry says, looking into Niall’s eyes, a fierce wish suddenly bubbling up in him. 

“Make it—”

“I mean,” he sniffs, “that new report should help, shouldn’t it?”

“Yep,” Niall nods, the lights throwing sheen and shadow along the crooked line of his fine nose, along the edges of his lips. “It should. It will.”

“Good,” Harry says. He shouldn't keep looking at Niall, but it's the polite thing to do when talking to someone.

Niall coughs. “I could be wrong, but I think someone’s taking photos of us,” he says and reaches for Harry, his hand stroking the side of Harry’s neck before resting there. 

Harry leans in, kissing him, once for the camera, just like at their wedding, and again in case the first time wasn’t a good one, in case the second time gets them closer to saving a couple of lives.

When he has to go back to LA to record some vocals, he entertains the thought of telling Niall to join him, if only for a couple of days. It would be good for Niall to get away and he thinks Niall might like meeting some of his other friends. 

There’s not really an excuse for it, though, so he stays clear of Niall’s number except to thank him for being his date for the benefit. Niall texts him back with a thumbs up and a pic of lion shit taken in London Zoo.

Less than a week later, he regrets not having made up an excuse. 

“Good thing you’ve stayed away from Panshanger,” Niall says on the other end of the line.

“I haven’t—Is everyone okay?”

“Everyone’s fine. I’m the only one they sent to A&E and it’s nothing.” 

“It’s not nothing. You’re in the hospital.”

“Harry, they only sent me here to get a few stitches. They’re making me wait so you know it’s not serious,” Niall tells him. “Look, I have to go. It’s a bit hectic at the moment.” 

“Wait,” Harry says. He’s been pacing up and down outside the studio waiting to get through to Niall for the better part of an hour. He think he deserves a bit more explaining. “What the fuck happened?”

“Just kids being idiots.”

“Niall, I heard there were bombs and shrapnel all over the place,” he says, as quietly as he can.

“Bottle bombs. Made with stuff you can find lying around the house. Drain cleaner, foil.”

He covers up his mouth and the phone so he can half scream his heart out. “What the fuck, Niall. So there _were_ bombs.”

“It was just a prank, Harry,” Niall says. “Not gonna happen again once we’ve got proper round the clock security. I’ll pay for it myself if Sidwith head office can’t release the funds by tomorrow.”

Harry finds a wall to lean on in the shade, not quite trusting his legs. “Niall, how do you know it’s just a prank?”

He hears Niall sigh. “The police had a look at the CCTV,” he explains after a silence. “Haven’t identified anyone yet, but they reckon it’s just kids trying to be funny and not minding going to prison for it. Bonfire Night was only a couple of days ago, wasn’t it? Didn’t quite get enough of seeing things explode, I suppose.” 

“Okay, but the vote is in three months. What if …”

“You don’t want to go down that road,” Niall cautions. “You’d go crazy if you start thinking that way.”

Niall is probably right because already, insanely, Harry has half a mind to tell him they should stay married for longer than planned, just so Niall will be safe, so they can make people believe they weren’t hustling after all. 

He can imagine Niall cackling at the idea, his eyes bright. _What you’re saying is, stay married, stay alive?_

“I’ll get on the earliest flight I can find,” Harry tells him.

“What for?”

“You’re hurt, Niall.” 

Niall sighs again. "I thought you read Law at uni, not Medicine. Listen to me, they're gonna take care of me here and then I'm going home, and tomorrow's gonna be just another day."

"I should be there," Harry says, maybe more fervently than he has any business being, and quickly reaches for a good reason, "We're married. I should come running, don't you think?"

"No. It's better if we don’t make a big deal out of this. We don’t want Sidwith in the news if we can help it," Niall says. 

It’s not what Harry meant at all, but he doesn’t want to argue over the phone.

"Stay there and get your work done. You've got that choir coming to record with you next Wednesday, you said."

"What choir? I—"

"Harry, you told me that yesterday." 

He feels a skittering in his chest, irritated but kind of pleased Niall remembers something he mentioned only in passing, probably when he was waiting for his Pilates class to start or for a chicken burger from room service.

"Promise me you'll get that done, Harry. I'm gonna be busy working here too."

Grudgingly, he gives Niall his promise, but he sends Sam to the house with strict instructions to hover over Niall at all cost. 

It’s a few long days before Niall stops hobbling around with crutches to keep the stitches on his knee and leg from getting disturbed, Harry hears from Sam, who has apparently gotten proficient at stopping Niall from batting him away. Sam even won the battle to stay over, bunking in the guest room, when Niall tore half of the stitches falling down and had to get them redone.

Corralling members of the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus into the recording studio ahead of schedule proves much more complicated, however. By the time Harry finally manages to leave LA, Niall is back to walking on his own and sleeping on the pull-out again, his only complaint being that the bombs and the police left the hangar a mess. He spends all hours at the aerodrome while his team clear up and assess the damage. They don’t think the caustic liquid in the bombs penetrated past the exterior surfaces, but they’ll have to take the planes apart to be sure.

Nothing seems different, except for the scar, pink still, the skin knitted untidily, that Harry sees when he catches Niall coming out of the bathroom in his sleep shorts one morning. Niall doesn’t seem worried or scared. He’s not checking to see what’s outside the front or back door first before opening it. 

Harry does find him late one night in the kitchen, swearing up a storm under his breath because it itches where the sutures used to be. He helps Niall with a pack from the freezer to numb the scar, the skin so soft that he makes doubly sure it’s protected from direct contact with the ice. 

He decides to take the next afternoon off and cook Niall a meal. It’s been a few months since they started living together. He probably owes Niall dozens of meals. 

With Sam, he heads out to the Waitrose by the station and buys everything to make rice, salmon teriyaki, and miso soup from scratch. He’s got the bowls he bought in Kawagoe and it’s probably time he uses them. It will be nice, he thinks.

Except five p.m. rolls round and it is a complete disaster. He’s burnt the rice and the miso – which should not have been fucking possible because it was in soup – and Sam is forbidding him from having a go at the salmon. 

He’s sat sweating in the kitchen, wishing he was more like Ben’s mum, who always has things in the freezer ready to be reheated whenever he pops by, when he realises that Hampstead isn’t that far a drive. He rings the Winstons’ and begs her for some of her chicken soup, which he’s in such a hurry to pick up, he forgets to tell Sam to hide the mess.

It takes him more than twice as long to get back after picking up the food because of bloody rush hour. When he bounds into the kitchen, Niall is standing, car keys still in hand, staring at the pots of burned food and packets of ingredients spilling out all over the place.

“Hey,” Harry jerks to a stop.

“I thought it’s you this time going to A&E,” Niall says, laughing for what Harry thinks is the first time since the night of the bottle bombs. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I was just cooking. But it was um, harder than I thought. There’s still salmon you can grill, though. And I’ve got chicken soup.” He lifts the plastic bag with the containers in. “It’s Ben’s mum’s.”

Niall clears a space for his keys on the counter, grinning. “How do you get these people to like you so much?” 

“I’m very nice,” Harry says, dropping his keys next to Niall’s. He puts down the plastic bag on top of the cooker. They need room to unpack it. He starts with the pot of burnt rice he has to actually tear out with his fingers. “And their son is very far away.”

“Dangerous cocktail. Ben’s going to be out of his inheritance if he’s not careful.”

He shrugs. “I’d be happy with the chicken soup recipe.”

Niall opens the dishwasher. “And a couple of cooking lessons, maybe.”

They end up having soup and salmon for dinner, Niall texting Ben’s mum when the salmon is on the grill to send her his thanks. 

It’s not the perfect two-course combination, but it’s really good and to be honest, he’s really hungry after the terrible afternoon of attempting and failing to make dinner. Not to mention having to rush out and back to get a replacement home-cooked meal. 

Niall finishes his salmon and turns his empty beer bottle round and round before he says, “I lost the ring.” 

There’s only one ring it could be, one of the two they picked up for the wedding, because Niall doesn’t wear any other. Harry looks over at Niall’s left hand and notices for the first time that it’s bare. 

“I was playing with it, just my nerves getting the better of me, when we were in the office waiting for the police. I haven’t seen it in there or in the hangar yet, but I’ll find it.” 

The hangar offices Harry visited in childhood were wondrous rooms filled with litter and clipped scraps of paper. Niall has a better chance of finding an airplane part that looks like a ring than the wedding ring itself, he thinks, and glances at his own hands, their stupid conversation at Greg’s party coming back to mind. 

He remembers the light breeze and the spring sun, the way Niall asked for his hand and then about the ring on his right middle finger, touching it as if it were precious.

“I don’t think either of us should do it,” he says carefully, putting his hands away, “but we can send someone to the shop to buy another one.”

A flash of irritation crosses Niall’s face. “Why spend the money when it’ll turn up?”

Harry shrugs. “I don’t know, Niall. What if someone asks you why you’re not wearing your wedding ring?”

“It would be none of their business,” Niall says matter-of-factly, and Harry feels a kind of warmth expanding in his chest, “but alright. For the sake of all this, I would tell them I’m getting it resized or something like that.”

“You can borrow one of mine, if you’d like,” he finds himself saying, the warmth rising up and around the back of his neck. He lifts his right hand, palm facing Niall, and uses his thumb to poke at the ring Niall admired. “This one, the one you said looks like an airplane part. You wouldn’t mind wearing a ring like this, would you?” 

Niall is staring at his hand, his face perfectly blank. 

Harry wiggles the scratched-up ring off his finger and offers it to Niall, who isn’t moving to take it from him. 

He should feel like he’s made a terrible mistake, but all he feels is a kind of giddiness. “I really think you should have something on, Niall. Just until you find the wedding ring.” 

Niall looks at the ring and then up at him, slowly. “Put it on,” he says, offering his left hand across the table. “Let’s see if it fits.”

“Okay.” Harry feels a bit too giddy now, like he’s about to be sick, like maybe his stomach thinks the salmon fillet wasn’t cooked long enough. He takes Niall’s hand and slips the cooling ring onto his finger, right up to the base where it meets his broad palm. 

Niall gives him a smile. “Fits well,” he says, the blues in his eyes looking like they’ve been messily stacked together. “Are your fingers a lot smaller than mine?”

“Maybe it’s your giant knuckles,” Harry says, and lets Niall’s hand go.

“Maybe,” Niall mumbles and takes a sip of what's left in the glass on the table. 

It's Harry's glass, but Harry isn’t going to say anything. He doesn’t want to know how Niall feels about drinking his backwash.

He slowly gets up and starts bringing the dishes to the sink, turns the taps on, lets the freezing water run all over his hands and fingers.

#

Between failing to grow a moustache for yet another Movember and worrying about bombs where Niall works in bloody Hertfordshire, Harry has been a little on edge. He can’t concentrate on his work, his jaunts down the side streets of Soho aren’t bringing him relief, and he’s snappish after the commute in and out of London. It’s also starting to get a bit too nippy to ask the assistants to stand in the long queues for the Brewer Street deli without seeming a dick. He spends his growing number of breaks wondering if his team should decamp to another studio or country entirely. He’d like to finish the album in LA and there are airfields in California. He’d bring it up with Niall, but Niall keeps saying the police are on the case and statistically, they won’t have to deal with bottle bombs in their entire lives ever again.

Mum thinks he needs to trust Niall’s judgement a bit more, which is somewhat shocking considering she must know Niall is the man who asked her son to fake-marry him.

On his way back home from an overnight visit up to Holmes Chapel, he stops off at Panshanger, not realising he’s done it, really, until he’s at the security checkpoint.

He parks where it’s marked ‘for Sidwith employees only’ and walks to the open hangar, the noises coming from it getting louder and louder as he gets closer. 

It’s probably strange that he’s smiling when the place was a crime scene a few weeks before. He can’t remember much from his last visit as a child, but there’s the way the shadows lie in the corners of the ceiling, and the smell of fuel and oil, the noise that’s like a terrible music but music nonetheless, and the warmth of the machines and tools in a place that would otherwise be ball shrinking cold. 

He thought he’d take a quick look and go to the office to find Niall, but he’s stood staring at the planes, parts of them off, spread on carts and the floor, and realising Niall probably hasn’t flown since the scare. 

“Can I help you?” a female voice asks over the punch and buzz of power tools.

He glances over and sees a woman in coveralls watching him.

“I’m looking for Niall. Horan. Um, Styles-Horan.”

“Yeah, he’s …” the woman looks around before eyeing him again. “Are you …”

He extends his hand. “I’m Harry. Niall’s husband.”

She wipes hers on the rag spilling out of one of her front pockets before shaking his. “Khaleda. I’m the airfield engineer.”

“Pleasure to meet you.” 

“Come this way,” she turns around and strides ahead of him. “Watch the cables. We’re doing a retrofit. Some of those are live. Nothing deadly, of course, but it’s never nice getting shocked, is it? Electrical burns can be a faff too," she says as if they've happened often enough to her.

“No. Um. I guess not.”

“Niall. Your bloke’s here for you.”

He can’t really hear Niall’s laughter, but he can see it. Niall’s head is thrown back, his neck bared, and his eyes are scrunched closed. He’s sitting down on a dolly, reclining on the slope of its lifting platform, and it’s shaking a bit from the force of his laugh. His white patterned shirt, the one Harry fished out of the dryer a couple of days ago, is unbuttoned and there’s the old grey jumper in his lap. Harry can see his torso, the smattering of hair over his pale skin, and freckles everyfuckingwhere. 

“Niall,” Khaleda calls again, louder.

“Yeah?” he looks over and quickly gets up with help from the rugby-player type he was laughing with. “Hey, Harry.” He starts buttoning up his shirt and putting on the grey monstrosity Harry thought he’d thrown away. “What you doing here?”

“I took Hertford Road coming off the A1. Thought I’d stop by.”

Niall’s head pops out of the jumper, his hair mussed even more, like someone’s just run through it with curious, hungry hands. “Want to go flying?” he asks, and when Harry doesn’t reply, adds, “Don’t worry. I’ve got a plane in another hangar we opened up. It just got here yesterday.”

“No. I mean, I think some other time,” Harry replies. He shouldn’t stay, anyway. Whatever chemicals they’ve got around the place for the retrofitting job are making his throat feel funny. "Want to get back and um, get to work in the studio."

"You sure?" Niall cocks his head. "Should be nice up there still. Just went up for a bit, could see for miles." His eyes look curious. "Might give you a bit of inspiration."

"Yeah, I've got a lot to do. I shouldn't even be here right now." 

"Well, thanks for visiting us," Niall says, rubbing his nose with the sleeve of his jumper. Then he asks, "You going into town or just working at the house?"

“At the house. I’m only running through a few things.”

Niall tucks his hands into his pockets. “Maybe I’ll come back early. Have dinner with you.”

“Okay.”

He pulls out lint and thread, and empty sweet wrappers, loosely working them into a ball in the palm of his right hand. The ring on his left hand is gleaming but dully, like it’s only biding time. “What d’you feel like?”

"Whatever you want." Harry clears his throat and tries again. "Like, a curry maybe."

"Curry, naan, samosas, the works, yeah? That blueberry raita you like."

"Okay. Yeah. Sounds great," Harry says, retreating to the mouth of the hangar, flipping up the collar of his black coat because he suddenly feels a bit naked without a scarf on, and getting himself home as he should’ve done earlier.

In the evening, Niall comes back with takeaway from the village, popping his head into the cellar to call him up. 

After dinner, they play Bananagrams with Harry’s Scrabble tiles, and Harry asks if Niall has thought about doing an Open Day for people in the area, maybe the kids in the local schools. They were both lucky enough to be able to see engineers and designers working on planes anytime they felt like it. Maybe there are kids out there who’ll fall in love with planes just like Niall did, if they get also chance to. 

“Could do,” Niall says, laying down S-T-R-O-N-G to finish his puzzle. “Peel.” 

Harry falls asleep in his bed thinking of how simple it would be to finish the album right where he is, whittle down the tracks and make them better, get them ready for the spring. He doesn’t have to go into London every day either. He can have people – Julian, Laurence – over at the cottage when they don’t need all the hardware on offer at Dean Street. He and Niall might even see each other more, mind each other better, in case the unexpected happens to become the norm in their patch of Hertfordshire for the length of their stay.

#

"Does Niall walk around topless all the time? " Julian sits down with his large mug of coffee, grinning. "Is that why you’ve been avoiding working here?"

"What?" Harry pulls off his headphones even though there isn’t anything playing through them. It’s been sunny all week, but it’s also late November and the cottage is a draughty place.

“You’re getting the hang of married life now, huh? Or still trying to build up immunity?” 

"Do we want food?" Laurence asks, coming down the stairs. "Can we get someone to do a run to Pret or somewhere, wherever. Did you have to get a place so far out of town, mate?"

"There's an M&S ten minutes from here," Harry says, a little surprised by the heat in his own voice.

"Let's get Len to go. Oi, Len."

Harry rolls back his chair and gets up. "I'll sort something out."

He takes the steps two at a time and finds Niall and Sam just outside the kitchen door. Niall is shirtless in ten-degree weather and there’s a faint smell of weed in the air.

"Hey."

"Hello, Harold."

“D’you need something, Harry?”

"Yeah. Can you sort out some food, please, Sam? Everyone’s starving downstairs."

"All the takeaway menus are in the drawer next to the fridge," Niall tells Sam, who slips back inside. "Get me a pizza if you're ordering from La Trattoria!"

Harry pulls him off the terrace in case Sam is watching from the kitchen. "Are you high?" he asks as they walk on the lawn around the house.

"Don't think so. Had a toke, that's it." When Harry is silent, surprised because he hasn’t thought about Niall possibly having outgrown his asthma the way he himself never did, Niall says, "Just trying to be polite cos I made those guys smoke out here. Told them we're an asthmatic household."

If someone had told him to expect sounding like his father one day, he’d have laughed, but he has to ask: "You're not flying today, are you?"

"Wasn't planning to," Niall says, cocking an eyebrow at him. He looks a proper smartarse, what with the goose pimples all over his arms and shoulders because he’s decided to strut around half naked in the cold.

"Why don't you have more clothes on? It’s freezing out," Harry sniffs. "And you know the sun’s coming down any minute now."

Niall laughs. "I wasn’t expecting to have a conversation with you out here. Was kicking the ball around with Tommo just a minute ago. Blowing off some steam. He's taking a shower right now, that idiot. Didn't want to get out of his work clothes, did he? Wanted to set an example for his team. Well, he's got them all sweaty in their suits now."

"Louis is here?"

"Yep. Brought people from his firm too. Everyone working on the vote," Niall says, rubbing his arms. "Turn around. They're all in there."

Harry does as he’s told and realises he and Niall are standing in front of the dining room windows. He waves back at the people waving at him from inside, some of them smiling at him weirdly even though he’s not the client showing skin. "Do you think they're hungry too?"

The pizzas arrive and they find themselves with a party in the cottage. Harry allows Julian and Laurence free reign over the music after they promised they won’t play any of the tracks longlisted for the album. A few people from the airfield drop by, ostensibly to talk to Niall about a testing programme they want to fit in before year-end, but since they brought beer and more food, how much work is actually getting done is anyone’s guess.

It’s late when Sam manages to shepherd everyone out the door, everyone except for Tomlinson, who is sitting cross-legged on the coffee table. 

“Can someone make my bed, please?” he orders.

Harry is about to laugh when he hears Niall cursing at the sofa bed in his room. 

He feels it, the roiling in his gut that’s not just drink and carbs, and rushes in. “I don’t think Sam’s driven off yet. Can’t we get him to drive Louis home?” he asks in a whisper. Niall is already moving the cushions off the sofa bed, but it’s worth a try.

“If you can lift him into Sam’s car, I’m all for it.”

“I could probably do it if Sam gives me a hand,” Harry says. He’s not particularly steady on his feet at the moment, having broken into the vodka with Mei the wills and probate solicitor earlier, but at least his knees aren’t bad like Niall’s.

“Forget it, Harry. He’s got a mouth on him and I got a feeling—That tonight’s gonna be …” Niall snickers over the folded mattress. “I have a feeling,” he tries again without the singing, “I don’t wanna hear anything coming out of it tomorrow morning.” 

“Let’s put him on the sofa out there, then. He knows we don’t actually sleep together.”

“Technically, he doesn’t,” Niall says. “Not covered by legal privilege, what we’re doing.”

Harry walks back out into the living room, sees Tomlinson slumped over himself, and gets closer. He can pull him over onto the sofa, he decides. It should be easy.

“Hey, hands off,” Tomlinson grumbles, flapping his elbows.

“The sofa’s better.”

“No, it’s not.”

Harry looks over his head. He’s right. There’s a slice of pizza cheese-side down on the sofa, the sauce all over the middle seat, bathing a tie he doesn’t recognise. Must be the culprit’s.

“Whose tie is that?”

“What tie?” Tomlinson mumbles, getting himself off the table in sharp jerks and swaying into the other room. He’s actually really funny to watch, like Johnny was when he played the wino knight in their fifth form Shakespeare production. “Niall, lad, tell me you’re a better host than your husband.”

Harry would be much more amused if he wasn’t already thinking of having to spend the night sharing a bed with Niall.

He goes to the kitchen, looks for the bottle of vodka, and pretends he can’t see the little mountains of empties and massacred food boxes in his way. 

There’s about a shot left. He downs it and goes to brush his teeth because he always brushes his teeth.

“Come on,” he says to Niall when he comes out the bathroom and sees him sitting on the sofa, eyeing the pizza and tie sitting in sauce, joined together in unholy tomatrimony. “Tomatrimony, Niall.”

“What you talking about?”

“The sauce. It’s like, making the pizza and the tie one thing. Tomatrimony.”

“Christ.”

“Come on,” he says again, turning for his bedroom. “Let’s go to bed.”

He’s toeing off his shoes when Niall follows him in.

“Which side of the bed do you go for?” he asks, shimmying out of his shirt and jumper in one go.

“Middle.”

He looks over his shoulder at Niall, about to flip him the bird, but Niall is stonily serious. Or maybe a bit too drunk to care. “I’ll just get in,” he says, going right. 

Niall goes left, taking only his shoes off and getting in whilst Harry is pulling his own trousers off. 

“Hey,” Harry says in the dark, once they’re both under the covers, the lights are out, and the cottage is familiarly still. “We finally have our wedding night.”

A low giggle rises from the shape on Niall’s side of the bed. “Almost six months later,” Niall says. “Better make it worth the wait, Harry.” 

Harry laughs, turning to reach Niall’s forearm, or what he thinks is his forearm, the honeycomb fabric of the Henley soft underneath his fingers. "Do you want to?"

There’s silence until Niall asks: "Want to what?"

"Fuck," Harry replies without needing to think about it. "Fuck me, specifically."

"Are we that drunk?" There’s wonder in Niall’s voice. Not like the first time they were allowed to stay up and watch the Perseids come showering past, but close. 

Harry will take close, at this point. He’ll take good enough.

"No, we’re not,” he says, tucking his hair behind his ear. “Which is important, Niall, it being the momentous occasion of our wedding night. 'Sides, it’s not fun when you're too drunk, is it? But like, it would be fun right now. We'd have a good time."

"We're already having a good time."

"You're being purposefully obtuse, Niall."

"Ooh," Niall turns toward him, his nose picked up by the moonlight. "Big words."

"It'll be good material,” Harry says, feeling belligerent. “For the next album. I should know what it's like to have sex with someone I’m married to. So I can write more songs people will think are about you and sell more records."

"And sometimes when we touch! The honesty's too much!" Niall warbles.

"Noooo," Harry laughs, both appalled and amused by how much Niall sounded like Rod Stewart.

Niall sighs, the covers susurrating as he settles deeper under them. Harry can feel his warmth, the weight of him on the mattress. "People fall for that all the time, do they? 'Baby, let's fuck so I can write a song about you, about us.'"

"First of all, never start with 'Baby,' and second, that's not how you write a song."

"Should you be telling me that?" 

“You asked.”

“True,” Niall yawns. "Sorry. Long day."

"I think the first single off of the next one is gonna be called _The Night My Husband Was Too Tired to Fuck Me_ and the video will have me crying, playing a harp to baby flamingos who are also crying, their little legs quivering in the air."

Niall snorts. "Anything's possible when it's all pretend."

 _If anything’s possible, we should fuck,_ Harry wants to argue, breathing into his pillow for a moment. Niall puts a hand on his waist, gently, firmly, and Harry stays silent.

The bed shifts in the quiet, Niall’s hold on his waist tightening, and Harry feels a sharp kiss on his chin, on his lips, before Niall is falling back.

“Sweet dreams, Harry.” 

Harry closes his eyes, face tingling, trying to decide if he should keep at it a bit more, and opens them to the morning light.

He’s thirsty first and anxious next, feeling a headache already coming on. 

He doesn’t remember having dreamt anything. 

Niall is asleep still, his face half hidden under the covers, but close enough that Harry can count his eyelashes. 

One, two, four, six, buzz. 

He moves his arm, gets it to tunnel down to his trousers on the floor so he can reach for his phone without disturbing Niall.

It’s Jeff, emailing to let him know that he’s got a _Rockin’ Eve_ spot if he wants it, and he should want it, so he’d better get himself over to LA for tomorrow’s taping.

He can’t quite believe it. Someone must’ve dropped out, but for them to want him as a replacement bodes well for his comeback, which is how he’s started thinking about the album. They didn’t consider him relevant enough in the past two holiday seasons and he doesn’t even have anything new out yet.

Sam and a couple of other people are cc’ed on the email and he sends his reply to all of them, saying he’ll get on a flight today. Sam will know to book him on one, private or commercial, whatever’s the earliest, as soon as he sees the email. He sends a text to Lambert too, asking if his team can whip up a few outfits for the job.

When he looks up from his phone, he sees Niall watching him.

“I have to go to LA,” he says, partly needing to share the good news and partly wanting to say something that’s not about last night. He was stupid, he knows. What he doesn’t know is if he’s stepped over the line.

Niall props his head up with his left hand, pushing the covers down. “When?” he asks, voice hoarse.

“Today. Last minute offer for a slot on a New Year’s show they’re taping tomorrow,” Harry tells him, and just because Niall might not understand the significance of it, adds, “ _Rockin’ Eve_. Highest rated in the States.”

Niall is smiling, sleepily but widely. “That’s amazing,” he says, his other hand moving past the covers to shake Harry’s shoulder. “Congratulations.” 

The shaking isn’t helping his headache, but all he wants to do is reach for Niall and pull him closer. He smiles back through the pain and wonders if he can, if there’s no line to cross because Niall’s already there with him. He puts his hand on Niall’s, stopping him. “D’you want to come with?”

Niall frowns. “I can’t, Harry,” he says, the tips of his fingers scratching at Harry’s shoulder, apologetic.

“Just for a couple of days. Watch the taping.”

“I can’t."

Harry sniffs, sitting up slowly, Niall’s hand falling away from him. “Too much going on.”

“Yeah. There’s the new tests they want us to do, need to figure out the scheduling for that, and I’ve got some things I need to sort out with the solicitors.” 

“That’s too bad.” 

Niall’s barely reaching from where he’s lying down so it almost feels like he’s rubbing Harry’s lumpy waist instead of patting it. “I’ll be here when you get back,” he says, and it sounds like a promise, which is stupid because it’s only a fact, and it might not even be true if Niall has to fly off on Sidwith business or if more teenagers decide Hertfordshire is a warzone.

Fuck. He’s always so emotional when he’s hungover. His head is pounding and his face feels hot. It’s usually about the time when he starts crying over something useless, like an animal-style burger he doesn’t remember eating or a nice thing someone said at the 24-hour ATM, so he gets out of bed, his feet making a perfect landing on the area rug. “Cool,” he says, throwing Niall a smile and marching to the shower.

Sam is all smiles when he comes to pick Harry up and it isn’t until the car gets to Heathrow that he finds out Niall rustled up a Sidwith jet for him and his team. Niall laughs when he answers the phone, telling him that it’s the least his family can do. 

He hits LA and it’s a mad twenty-four hours rehearsing and prepping for his set of three songs. The label reps, with Jeff seconding, urge him to pick _If I Could Fly_ to sing but tell him they’ll support whatever he chooses for the other two. He agrees, aware that the fairy tale marriage is a selling point and he should be thinking of how every little thing now is going to lead up to next year’s release.

During the interview at the taping, he gets a question about life as a married man, to no one’s surprise. 

He shrugs, grinning. “The same. I mean, it doesn’t change, you know? You’ve still got your life. It’s just, you’ve got someone else you share it with. And in my case, he’s very nice. Very nice to share a life with.” 

When the other host asks him about his New Year’s resolution, he laughs. “Uh. I don’t know. Stay married?” 

Jeff takes him aside later, wanting to know if he and Niall are doing okay or if the agency needs to get the resolution question and answer cut from the segment. Harry tells him not to worry. 

Either way, he admits to himself, it’s the truth.

He texts Niall to say he’s staying on in LA for a few more days and moves from the hotel into his guesthouse, stumbling in the dark over furniture he doesn’t remember.

It’s not the best time to be thinking of another track he hasn’t even recorded yet, but he’s wanted to do a cover for ages, the way Chan Marshall seems to do them, taking on the songs for what they mean to her, loving hard enough that the music becomes hers. 

He's got a few demos of covers lying about, but he's never done the one he's thinking of. 

It's always felt too close, like a dream that hurts a bit because it's trussed up to the real things but doesn't ever get to be real with them.

Years ago, he'd swan around his place in Tribeca half sober after a long night, belting out all kinds of tunes, and have a go at singing it the way Nina did, her classical inflections cool for the lush orchestral instruments. When he was winding down after gigs in cities he never saw again, fucking around on his guitar, he'd play with Bowie's moneyed, high pop take. 

He does his own now, stood in the small project studio he installed a few years ago, in the only room in the main house without any large windows. It’d be the room Niall would say is good for sleeping in, probably, and Harry tells himself he’ll get Niall to LA if only to have him walk around the house and say it.

He records himself just the once, just to have something to send to his producers. He waits for the notification that it's gone and shuts everything off, sits in his steam shower laughing until he's dizzy, and drops into bed.

It's one in the afternoon when he wakes up.

He listens to Julian’s voicemail. It’s gruff, and probably sent on the fly if he knows Julian. “We’re meant to be narrowing options, not adding more. Are you staying out there or are you coming back here? Because I’m only here for you, man, and my wife would probably be happy to see me. You know, my wife in LA?”

There's a text too, sent an hour later. _Call Ryan_

People somehow always know when he's talking to them lying down in bed. He sits up and dials, clearing his throat, bracing himself for a lecture. It goes straight to voicemail, though, so he leaves Julian an honest apology and dials Ryan next.

"Fuck you, Styles," Ryan answers, laughing. "We're all still crying here, man. I mean, _Wild Is The Wind_. This fucking song. Max almost crashed his car when I played it to him. He wants to be on this one if you want him working on it. When are you coming in? You owe everyone a drink."

It's single material, according to Ryan, if they can get the instrumentation right and he can sing it again like he did in the demo. 

He wants the track to be sparse, like a live recording in a small venue. Him singing, the piano, the drums, the double bass. Max agrees, but it doesn’t quite fit on the album that way and Harry is meant to be using his time getting a dozen tracks ready for the label to listen to by February, not making plans to rework the ones on the longlist. He extends his stay and makes the most out of having Ryan, Julian, and Max in the studios before everyone starts winding down and disappearing as the holidays approach. 

“You got bold. I like that,” Ryan says to him one day, and he feels it. 

Throwing a little party before he leaves seems the right thing to do. He’s absolutely sure now, he has all the tracks he needs to start thinking about the shortlist, even if quite a few of them aren’t completely the way he wants them to be. 

The whole of LA decide to show up, their faces lit up by the fairy lights strung through the thick bamboo, the lanterns hung along the evergreen walls and pathways. He avoids getting chucked into the pool, Jeff taking him into the kitchen to suggest throwing a few more parties leading up to the album release next year. It almost feels like old times again, except he’s not eyeing anyone to spend the night with.

He sends a couple of short videos to Niall, telling him it’s not a party without the avgas and jet fuel talk but that they’re trying their best. 

The next day, he wakes up to a text with a half dozen laughing emojis and _you should’ve told me . I know some Boeing engineers based out of long beach . good lads and always up for it!_

It’s late when he gets back to the cottage after the flight from LA. He tips the driver once he’s gotten the front door unlocked and goes inside alone to be as quiet as possible, finding space for his bags in the living room by the light of one of the table lamps. 

Niall, who never uses a light if he can help it, must’ve left the lamp on for him. 

Someone’s steam-cleaned the sofa, he also notices, and the door to the home office is slightly ajar, a faint snoring coming through.

He doesn’t know why he expected Niall to still be in his own bed. Maybe it’s the image he’s been holding on to in the past two weeks. He stands in the doorway watching Niall’s chest softly rising and falling, the blankets on the pull-out bed down by his waist, and wonders if it’s too presumptuous to get under the covers with him. 

His eyes adjusted to the dark, he steps inside the room and sits in the wooden desk chair. He won’t stay for long. He’s missed him, that’s all. He’s got used to the trouble they’re both in, being housemates and having each other as company. 

He’d like to know if things are a little different now, if they’re treading a road that will go on and on and on, even if it includes him and Niall not walking together for stretches of it, even if it means one of them will be asleep some nights, having waited too long.

#

From the amount of light in the valley, it must be past ten. He rubs his eyes and grabs the robe he left at the foot of his bed when he went to sleep, puts on the robe and his slippers on his way out of the bedroom.

"'Morning," Niall says, looking up from his phone, smiling. He has a takeaway cup in front of him and his grey hat on. He’s already been out for a walk or a drive somewhere, Harry thinks. 

More likely a drive. A hot drink doesn’t last all the way back from the village and there’s a bin at the bus stop before the last stretch of public footpath back up to the cottage.

It’s Friday, though. Niall should be in the office. 

"Hey," Harry sniffs, aware he’s just been standing there, staring at him.

"Hungry?"

"Yeah."

Niall puts his phone down. "How about a fry-up?"

"Sounds nice. Thank you." Harry feels a bit shy for some reason, as if he’d been caught last night watching Niall sleep for a good hour like a weirdo. "But, um, I kind of want a shower first."

“Go ahead,” Niall tells him. "Should be ready when you get out."

Harry washes his hair quickly to get the airplane dank out of it, and takes a hit of cooler water at the end just to wake himself up a bit. He puts on a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and one of his old jumpers before drying his hair and running some product through. He’s not going anywhere today, but Niall is making him breakfast and he should try to get closer to the amount of effort Niall is putting in. 

"Des Styles ordered another proxy firm to do a report," he hears Niall tell someone over the sizzling of the frying pan on the cooker, the smell of tomatoes, eggs, and bacon in the air. "It’s in circulation now. Tide’s turning. The board’s gonna have to table the Lampardi bid for voting."

"Your father-in-law finally softened up?" a guy on speakerphone asks. 

Harry coughs to let Niall know he’s there because Niall usually takes his calls in private.

"Mad, innit?" Niall says, looking over his shoulder and beckoning Harry into the kitchen with a wave of the spatula. “Hey, Harry.” He turns back to his cooking. “Harry’s here.”

The guy either didn’t hear Niall or doesn’t care about the mention of him because he says, "I guess it's lucky I never found an imam who'd marry us."

Harry, thirsty and lightheaded, wonders who the guy is and whether he should stick around to listen to any more of what he’s going to say, but Niall is laughing. 

"If you'd wanted to find one, you'd have found one."

"Yeah. Probably," the guy laughs too and Harry takes the long way to get to the fridge. "Doesn't mean I don't love you, though."

He wants a juice, any kind of juice. 

Niall turns the cooker off. "Love you too," he says. "I gotta go. Our food’s ready." For a few seconds, there’s only the sound of Niall plating up their breakfast. "Say goodbye, Harry."

Harry comes closer, hugging the bottle of orange juice. “Who am I saying goodbye to?”

"Goodbye, Harry,” the guy says, and it sounds as if he’s grinning. “I’m Zayn. Niall’s five percent."

The one Niall’s been referring to as ‘a friend’ whenever he’s mentioned the shareholders who will vote with him. “Goodbye, Zayn,” he replies. “I’m Harry. Niall’s twelve point seven five percent.” 

“Alright,” Zayn says after a moment, laughing again. “I’m gonna go. Talk to you soon, Niall.”

“Yeah. Later, Zayno.” Niall clicks off and looks at him.

“What?” Harry says, getting glasses for the juice.

Niall slides the empty frying pan back on the cooker. “He’s a good guy. A good friend.”

“Okay.”

“And you’re more than my thirteen percent.”

“Twelve point seven five percent.”

“Christ. Harry, you’re more than a percentage, okay?” Niall says, taking both their plates to the table they use to eat in the kitchen. “Get the cutlery, will you? I know he started it, but that’s just a private joke.”

Harry goes to grab a couple of forks and knives even though his hands are already full. “So I was joking back.” 

Niall looks like he disagrees, but what he says, eyes concerned, is: “You want toast, don’t you?” 

“Uh. I’m not—Thanks,” Harry mumbles, when Niall passes by him, going back to the counter and filling the toaster with bread. Harry stands at the table, putting the utensils and glasses down in their places, pouring the juice. 

“How was LA?”

The last time they spoke was after the taping, he realises. He didn’t tell Niall about recording a new song or what they were racing through in the studios. “It was fine. Warm. Sunny.”

“Did you get work done? See your friends?”

“Yeah. I’ve definitely got an album now. Saw some friends. Hung out. Met some people. Had that party,” Harry says, going back for coffee. “You?”

“Busy,” Niall says, fiddling with the butter.

“How’s Panshanger?”

“Haven’t found the ring yet,” Niall says. Harry shrugs in reply, just in case Niall is looking. “Everyone all over the place,” he continues. “But good. Different. We’re not done setting up yet with all the space we’ve got now, but we’re getting there.”

“Cool.” Harry nods. The machine coughs up three espressos and he pours them into hot water for a much-needed long black. “D’you want coffee?”

Niall shakes his head. “I’m set.”

They’re silent in their spaces until they sit down to eat. Niall tells him about where he’s kept Harry’s post. Harry thanks him and tells him he’s given Sam the weekend off so everyone can get over their jet lag. Niall asks him if he’s seen the email from Des about the holidays. Harry says he’ll look at it later.

It’s like every meal they had at the table during the peaceful summer. Except there’s no pineapple slices to peel away from burgers and they’re shut up in the house, the grey of winter seeping in through the draughty windows. Except there’s everything that’s happened in between and maybe Niall is trying to tell him something, trying to let him down easy. 

He needs to know. He doesn’t want to guess and guess wrong. “That guy,” he says, putting down his knife and fork. “Zayn. He’s not over you.”

Niall stares at him, chewing. “It’s not like that.”

“Trust me. He’s not over you.” 

“It’s not like that.” Niall drinks his juice, confusion in his eyes, and shakes his head. “You’ve got the wrong bloke, Harold.” He wipes his mouth with a paper napkin and puts one in front of Harry. “It’s true, we’ve hooked up a few times over the years, but that’s the start and end of it. You can do that with mates you trust, can’t you, if you know how to police that line,” he says, and Harry’s stomach is twisting and untwisting helplessly. 

Maybe Niall is good at policing lines, but Harry is the sort of person who's always getting tickets. He’s sure now. Niall is trying to tell him that if he wants more, there’ll have to be rules. 

“Not my story to tell, but it’s actually Liam Zayn’s mad about. So you could say, Zayn’s Liam’s five percent.” When Harry remains silent, Niall adds with familiar finality, “The Paynes are as much a part of Sidwith as we are.”

Harry gazes at the clean napkin by his empty plate. “They’re more a part of Sidwith than I am. I’m a shareholder. That’s all.”

“Not true.” Niall uncaps the bottle of orange juice. “D’you want some more?”

“No. Thanks,” Harry says, shaking his head. 

He takes the napkin and blows his nose into it, the gunk from the flight coming out in little bits. A hot shower is always good for clearing his sinuses. He might take another one later. Maybe after a walk and a nap. He’ll go for a walk in a minute, get some fresh air. It’s grey outside, but he can head into the village or say hello to the horses if they’re in the paddock by the footpath. They’re good horses. 

He balls up the napkin, waits for Niall to be done with his juice.

He can feel Niall staring at him again, like he’s a problem to be solved. “Harry—”

“So, Liam and Zayn. You and Zayn. Is there like, some sort of international airmen dating pool?” 

Niall raises an eyebrow. “Steamy sex in cold hangars? No. Zayn’s a lecturer at TU Berlin.” 

“I didn’t know academia paid so well.”

“Oh, the shares?” Niall asks after a moment. “The Maliks got started with gyms – Fit First, that’s them – and branched out into property. Commercial, mostly, up north, Scotland. The sisters are running it now. Zayn’s the odd one out in the family,” he explains, putting down his empty glass. “A bit like someone else I know.”

Harry rolls his eyes. People like them are ten a penny.

“You’d like him,” Niall says.

“Maybe I would,” Harry says, leaning back in his chair. “Is there an initiation rite for the international airmen dating pool?”

Niall exhales. “You’re being an idiot.”

“Fine. The mates-you-can-trust hook up pool.”

Niall glances around the floor, as if he’s looking for something. “We never talked about that, did we?” he says when he looks up, his voice low. “What we’re doing this year as far as that goes.”

Harry can’t pretend he doesn’t know what Niall is talking about. It’s part of everything that’s happened, since Harry put it out there, the night before he left for LA. “No. We didn’t. Didn’t think there was a need to. Don’t think there’s a need to now,” he says, hoping Niall will leave it be. He doesn’t want it to be another thing they discuss, negotiate, agree on.

“Were you careful in LA?”

It’s funny, having a conversation at the end of a meal and suddenly finding he’s been sat with a stranger. “What d’you mean, Niall?”

“What do you think I mean?”

He gives Niall a sharp look. “Have you been careful wherever you’ve been?”

Niall nods as if all they’re doing is going over another boring Sidwith document and Harry’s just pointed out a paragraph he’s already read. “Haven’t had much of an urge for that sort of company,” he says with a wry smile. “Been too busy.”

“So have I,” Harry shoots at him.

“If you want to bring someone here, you can, you know that, don’t you? Someone you trust, it goes without saying.”

“So why say it?”

“That’s just an expression, Harry. I know you know what’s at stake,” Niall says softly. He tips his head, looking at Harry for a while. “And I’m here for you, if you need it.” 

“If I need it?” Harry blanches. There’s the start and end of them, he’s found out. Niall making it easy for Harry to survive their arrangement. “That’s great.” He pushes his chair back. “That’s really great, Niall, but no.” 

It's the sort of rubbish he didn’t want. He didn't make a separate life for himself, away from Sidwith, to have it back in his life like this. He didn't put away all things to do with Niall to start caring again like this.

“Harry, wait.”

He gets up. “Thank you for breakfast. It was delicious.”

“I could’ve put that better,” Niall says, following. “There’s no international airmen dating pool, but there’s me. You can trust me.” 

“And what does that involve? You lying back and thinking of Sidwith?”

“No. I’d think of you. Someone I care about. Someone I love.”

“What?” Harry freezes. Slowly, he turns around.

“We grew up together. 'Course I love ya.”

“Niall.” A foolish part of him is tempted by the affection in Niall’s voice. Another part still wants a lick of those wrists he first saw at Greg’s party. And there’s the morning he left for LA, the comfort of the covers and Niall warm next to him, his voice so tender. But that’s not what Niall is offering, and it’s not a safe place to be. It’s not a place he’ll be able to come back to, four, five, six months from now. “I’m honestly not that desperate for a fuck.” 

Niall snorts, his shoulders twitching into a shrug, his face blooming red. “Fair enough.” 

“I don’t mean I’d have to be desperate to want to fuck you. I just—” Harry shakes his head. “That’s not really what I go for anymore,” he says, wanting to shut his eyes, to stop looking and being looked at. “And I know I was the one who brought it up, before I left, but I don’t think we should go down that road.”

“Yeah.” Niall wipes his hands on his trousers. “It’s probably best we don’t.” 

Harry glances at the doorway, folds his arms, tries not to rush off. “Good. Glad we agree.”

“Well.” Niall chuckles. “This is awkward.”

“You’re telling me,” Harry says. He’s going for that walk now. He’s going to go into the village and buy something to read, sit at a café, make the day go back to normal. 

“Everything’s going well, though, isn’t it? I’m not all that worried about the February vote anymore, to be honest with you,” Niall says quickly, going back to the table. He rubs his forehead with his sleeve before bending down to gather up the dirty plates and glasses. “March is the earliest we can start divorce proceedings, but that’s only three months from now.”

“Good,” Harry says, slipping away. 

He’s muddy by the time he gets to the village, his wellies and coat sprayed a brownish grey by an angry kissing gate, and he might’ve gotten weepy in front of the horses along the way. He’ll admit, all isn’t quite normal. But he’s got nice people asking him for his autograph and wanting to take photos with him outside the chemist’s. He’ll be okay, he tells himself. He’s never ever truly on his own.

#

“Are you and Niall spending Christmas with your father?” Sam asks, supposedly back to work sorting out Harry’s life for him.

“No,” Harry says, appalled. 

“So shall I make up an excuse for you?”

“Hold on. What are we excusing me from?”

He’s expecting the email from Des to be about a company Christmas party or some other do on the corporate calendar. Instead, it’s about a family Christmas, specifically theirs. Des has already decamped for his place in Malta for the winter and Harry suspects that’s where he hoped everyone would join him.

Gemma already wrote back saying she’s going to Thailand with her boyfriend, and Mum and Robin are making their way to Asia with her. Greg sent his apologies because he, Denise, and Theo are hosting all the Horan cousins from Christmas till after New Year’s. 

Midweek, there’s a reply from Niall saying Maura and Chris are spending the hols in Ireland, but there’s definitely room at the table if more people want to come. 

Harry has the nightmarish thought of spending half the holidays with his dad and whichever overly solicitous girlfriend he’s got around and half with the Gallaghers, having to pretend to be actual newlyweds.

He’s itching to send a reply to excuse himself and Niall, but they haven’t talked about what they’ll be doing, and despite the recent awkward silences between them, there’s a right and a wrong way to go about things. He betters the odds for himself, though, and calls to tell his mother he’ll join them for New Year’s. 

Sam books the flights for him and he texts Niall the news.

When they bump into each other in the hallway the next morning, Niall already leaving for the airfield, Harry asks: “Do we know what’s happening for Christmas?”

“You’re off on the twenty-ninth, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to spend Christmas with your dad?”

“No. Absolutely not. It won’t be just my dad. It’ll be the girlfriend, the girlfriend’s family, people he does business with …”

“I’m not up for a big Christmas either, but I should join Ma and Chris at some point.” Niall scratches his nose, the fingers of his black gloves flapping in his hand. “Alright. We’ll say we’re having a quiet Christmas, just the two of us, and go from there.”

“Okay,” Harry says, and sends the email to his father himself.

It’s set be a glum Christmas and he half wishes they’re going somewhere warm, some place he could spend the silences soaking up the sun.

He gets his Christmas shopping done in a couple of days, even though the list is significantly longer than the one from last year, and spends most of his time in town, seeing friends and delivering presents. The weekend before Christmas, he makes a trip up to Holmes Chapel to spend it with Mum and Robin before they go. 

On his way back down, he stops at the curlicue driveway just outside the village, stares at the patch of concrete he was sick over in primary school after too many vinegar chips. Alice and Johnny have been based in the States for years, but Harry knows she always comes home to see her family for the holidays. 

He gets out of the car and makes his way to the front door, a wreath with a small red bow hanging over it. He and Alice haven’t spoken in a long time, the fractures in their friendship grown deep without anyone tending to them. Him dropping by might not be welcome at all. He presses the doorbell anyway, and waits when a young boy he doesn’t know comes to the door and disappears to find her.

“I just wanted to say hi and Happy Christmas,” he says in a rush when she comes out to meet him. 

“Happy Christmas,” she says, not coldly, her blond hair wrapped high with a scarf. “I heard you got married. Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” he nods, chancing a smile.

She smiles back. “He’s the one you used to get stuck in that Cornish village with, isn’t he? The kid with the sheep video.” 

“Yeah.” Harry’s smile widens. “That’s him.”

“That’s cool,” Alice says, and looks around him at the car.

“Oh, he’s not—He couldn’t come up with me.” He clears his throat. “Work. Rushing to get stuff done before end-of-year.”

She grins. “Your dad’s making him take care of the books? Learn the trade?”

It slipped his mind that she knows about Sidwith. “Couldn’t get out of it. It’s his family’s business too,” he says, grinning back. 

“You managed to, though,” she says easily. 

“Don’t have the head for numbers.”

“Me neither.” Her eyes light up and she laughs. “God, we were so stupid, weren’t we, Haz? All that money we pissed away.”

“I know.” He laughs. “But we’re all doing okay now, yeah?”

“I think so. You cutting a new record? I saw Max a few weeks ago. He mentioned he was working on something with you.”

“Yeah.”

“Good luck,” she says, not like when they were leaving the Parlophone offices, the band’s contract officially dissolved, but like when she was getting him onto a plane leaving New Zealand, at the start of the race to make Bobby’s funeral.

“Thank you.” 

“You heading out to New York anytime soon? I’ll give you my number. We should catch up.”

“That’d be great,” he says, and a couple of minutes later, pulls her into a tight hug before they say goodbye. 

They’ve got a lot to say to each other, and some of it will be hard, but maybe there’s a future for their friendship, maybe they’ll find the seams that aren’t irreparable. 

The cottage is pitch dark when he arrives, tired after the drive, just the motion sensor lights guiding his way through the garden. 

Niall mentioned he had to go away for a few days. Harry can’t remember when he’s due back, but he leaves the light on in the living room just in case it’s tonight. 

He wakes up alone in the cottage and showers, thinks about getting a tree before Sam starts to get suspicious. He always put up a tree in his flat. He rings Niall to say he’s buying a tree because it’s what people do, but the first thing out of his mouth is: “Do you want to go to see Bobby on Christmas Day?” 

On Christmas Eve, he leaves a gift under the tree in the living room for Niall. It’s only a scarf, stone grey, thick, and soft. When Niall comes home, clearly from flying, he’s got a gift in his hands too. 

“Well, I thought since we have a tree …” He coughs. “Here.”

Harry takes the box and puts it under the tree next to his. “Tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Niall nods. 

They stand by the glow of the tree in another one of their silences. Harry is now used to going down to the studio to avoid them when it’s late in the day, but Niall looks like he’s got something to say.

“I'm sorry. About the other day. I wasn't trying to—” Niall stops, rubbing the back of his neck, and Harry holds his breath. “I didn't think it through. I don't want things to be hard for you. You're doing me a favour and I'm—” Niall catches Harry’s eyes and sheepishly says, “But that's not how we've ever been friends, is it?” 

“You should've offered to go exploring with me,” Harry tells him. It’s what Niall did, in the summers after Dad moved out, the arguments between him and Mum carrying over into how Augusts were going to be run, even when she was already in Cornwall with the kids. 

Niall crosses his arms like he’s hugging himself. “Go rockpooling?”

“Look for tube worms and crabs.”

“Watch out for the man-eating crab, though,” Niall says, smiling.

Harry feels a grin coming loose. He remembers being nipped on the wrist by the red-eyed crab, Niall pulling it off him and getting nipped too, and the two of them running back to the house from the rock pool, insistent they’d found a new species of man-eating crab. “They didn't believe us.”

“No,” Niall says, chuckling, knocking his foot mindlessly against the coffee table. 

Harry wants to lean in, put his face in the cradle of Niall’s neck and shoulder, say thank you for the rock pools and the gut weed fights, the hugs and the sky at night. He swallows all of it down and asks instead: “Are you flying us over tomorrow?”

“Oh. Right.” Niall looks up. “I forgot to tell you,” he says, eyes shadowed. “All the airports are closed over there tomorrow so it’s gonna be a helicopter to the Sidwith complex in Leixlip. We’ll take two cars so one can take you back. I’m going up to Ma’s and staying on through New Year’s.”

“Makes sense,” Harry nods, hoping the disappointment he’s feeling isn’t showing on his face. “Well, goodnight,” he says, turning away.

“Goodnight,” Niall says back, and Harry hears him switching off the lights, but the tree is still glowing in the morning. 

Niall winds the new grey scarf around his neck as they leave the Sidwith building on the other side of the Irish Sea. There are two cars waiting for them, a saloon with a driver, and a Range Rover that Niall slips into, driver-side. Harry looks back up before he gets in the saloon, sees the helicopter waiting up on the landing pad, its blades slowed almost to a stop. He raises his hand to the pilot, who waves back. 

He tightens his own new scarf as the driver closes the door. It’s yellow and purple, two colours he hasn’t worn together in years, but it’s from the uni gift shop, still at University Place according to Niall, and he likes the idea of Niall stopping by their old campus and picking up something for him. There isn’t a Sidwith office in Manchester, but it’s an easy drive from the factory in Wolverhampton. Niall must’ve bought the scarf on his last visit up to reassure the employees about the vote.

The cars leave Leixlip one in front of the other, but they lose Niall on the motorway not long into the hour it takes to get to Fore even though the roads are mostly empty. 

Harry wonders if Niall is listening to Christmas music on the radio or if his car is just as silent as Harry’s. 

It’s gusty when he arrives in Westmeath, the cold wind blowing sharply down the hill and through the old cemetery to the new. 

Niall is already waiting, leaning on the side of the Range Rover, his hair whipped about and streaked golden in the sun.

They walk up to the grave together, Harry with his hands shoved deep into his pockets, Niall with the flowers they brought over from England, his grey scarf tucked into his coat. 

There’s a headstone now where the grave marker was on Harry’s first visit. It had also been his last, he’s ashamed to admit. Bobby’s name and years are gilded, and the lettering and masonry are elegant, but the stone is small. There’s just enough space for the quiet words ‘our beloved father and grandfather’ underneath, the bottom edges partially hidden by the mass of flowers recently laid there. 

“Hello, Da.” Niall bends down to lay the flowers. “I brought the idiot with me.”

Harry follows, patting the stone. “Uh. Hi, Bob. Happy Christmas.”

“You don’t need to talk to the grave, Harry,” Niall says, crouched.

“Okay,” Harry says, also crouched. “But you just like, talked to it.”

Niall shakes his head, a small smile on his face, and gets up. “If he’s still around, I hope he’s not in there,” he says gently, maybe a bit sadly.

Harry straightens, wiping his hands on his coat. It’s many years too late, but he says: “I’m sorry I didn’t make the funeral.” 

“You were on the other side of the world.” 

He can’t tell if Niall’s eyes are glassy only because of the stinging wind. “Maura told me about her version of the sky burial,” he tells him. 

“Sky burial? Isn’t that where they leave the body for vultures to eat?”

He nods, and reaches for the headstone again to wipe a few blades of grass off of it. “Yeah, but like, she said here it would be the worms eating the body first before the birds eat the worms and um, you know, take the body up into the sky that way.” 

“Oh Jesus. She did?” Niall lets out a breathy chuckle. “That madwoman.” 

“She thinks I’m a bit of a wet blanket, doesn’t she? She definitely did back then,” Harry says, smiling, accepting the truth of it now. “She didn’t want me bothering you. After he died. She didn’t want me to go looking.”

“I probably didn’t make myself easy to find, either,” Niall says after a moment. Harry tightens his new scarf again, tucking its ends under the scarf itself so they’ll stop getting whipped about. “I’m sorry too. For not being there for you. He was important to you too, wasn’t he?” 

“Niall, don’t ever apologise for that.”

“I was trying to keep busy. I didn’t want to think about what was going on. Life. Everything,” Niall tells him. “Whenever I started thinking about it, I just got more confused. Didn’t know who I was. Didn’t know who I wanted to be.”

Harry can hear his own heartbeat when he asks, “Do you know now?” 

“No,” Niall laughs, brows furrowed. “I’m starting to think maybe I never will.” He glances at Harry and then back down at the grave. “This year’s been good, though. Reminded me of the good things. And it’s what Bobby would’ve wanted,” Niall says, slowly, choppily, the way Professor Winston speaks when he’s reading the paper and talking at the same time. “The company passing into good hands, I mean.”

Niall isn’t looking, but Harry nods in case Bobby can see him.

#

In the middle of January, a month before the Sidwith shareholders are voting on both the DAE and Lampardi offers, Greg asks them to lunch. Harry wants to decline, but Niall argues that they should go. They’ve already set up the family vote, organised through the company’s solicitors to avoid any more verbal punch ups; there’s nothing else Greg can do.

Harry’s not convinced, but Gemma is on a ski trip and he doesn’t want to leave Niall alone with his brother, especially not when he’s about to fly off the same day on an aid supply mission someplace he won’t even talk about.

They’re a couple of minutes late to the restaurant after needing to double back in one of the winding alleys of the City. Greg isn’t there waiting, but there’s a table ready for them, curiously booked under _Styles-Horan_. Harry looks at Niall to see what he thinks of it, but Niall is staring into the dining room. 

The hostess excuses herself to put away their coats and Niall turns to mutter, “That fecker. I bet that table is ours, the one under the mirror.” 

“Why?” Harry asks, trying to discretely look through the dark wooden screen separating the reception area from the dining room. He sees a large gilt-edged mirror and an empty set table underneath it, but he doesn’t see what’s special about either of them.

“You see the table of four in the corner, by that painting with the giant flowers?”

He looks again, sees four men at a table bracketed by the one Niall thinks is theirs and a still life of hydrangeas the same shade of blue as the ones in his mother’s garden. “The hydrangeas? Hydrangeas aren’t actually giant, Niall, they’re pretty small, but they—”

“Harry. No time. The man in the blue suit. That’s William Russ. DAE Systems’ Chairman.”

“I don’t—” But he does see. It’s his dad’s friend Bill, the American with silver hair and quick grey eyes. “Oh. That guy,” he mumbles. It’s probably coincidence that he met Bill when he was leaving Des’ office, and it feels like ages ago now, but. “I know him.” 

“You know him.”

Niall’s voice is making his back feel warm. It shouldn’t. It’s low, and a bit deadly, and Harry is meant to forget about them being a possibility. “Yeah. I mean, I’ve met him. Once. And um, apparently when I was small. You know he’s my dad’s friend, don’t you? But, um, he knows Greg too. Told me to give Greg his congratulations at the anniversary party.”

“I don’t know what Greg thinks he’s doing,” Niall says, eyes blazing.

“It’s probably just a coincidence, Niall.”

“No. Not possible.” 

“Does it matter?” Niall turns his sharp gaze at him. “We both look great. We both look married,” Harry says, glancing down at their hands, his ring still on Niall’s finger. 

Niall’s gaze softens, his head shaking minutely. “That’s the order of importance, is it?”

It is, kind of. Harry still remembers William Russ talking about how Niall never got over Bobby’s death as if that’s the thing to know about Niall, as if that’s the truth. Even if it is, it’s not the only truth. Niall is the best person Harry knows, he’s amazing at what he does, and he looks bloody good in a suit. 

Harry takes Niall’s hand when they’re led into the dining room, lets it go only when Russ warmly extends a hand to shake.

Russ offers them his congratulations and thankfully, Niall switches into newlywed mode, all smiles and laughter. 

When Greg joins them, only nodding in passing at Russ’s table, Harry asks him about his Christmas and New Year’s. He spends a good quarter of an hour listening to stories about various Horan cousins and another quarter talking about what he got up to with Mum and Robin. It feels like a nice family catch-up, weirdly enough, even if Niall is mostly quiet, and Harry tells Greg in all honesty that the best part of his holidays was going with Niall to visit Bobby’s grave.

Niall gives him a bewildered smile and Harry laughs a little at his own sentimentalism. Greg only nods, tucking deeper into his pork belly and dandelion leaves.

The plates are cleared and the table brushed before Greg says, hands clasped: "I had my reservations, but having seen the reports and considered the merits of both offers, I've gone with you on this vote, Niall, wanting the best for our family." 

Niall is silent and Harry waits with him.

"Some would say, if I wasn't a team player, I'd have challenged the block vote stipulation," Greg continues, "but I haven't and I won't because you're my brother, and Harry, you are too now. Family always come first."

It's a little bit of a revision, Harry thinks. If Greg hadn't set them all down this path with his courting of DAE, Harry and Niall wouldn't even be married. 

“But you’re being irresponsible, Niall.” 

Niall leans back into his chair, fixes the napkin his lap. “Am I? How’s that?”

“I know you’re going away again on another one of these supply missions for MSF,” Greg says. “Never mind how I know. That’s a dangerous job, isn’t it? You’re risking your life every single time you’re out there for them.”

Niall sips his coffee, face placid, before he says, “Everything is dangerous depending on how you look at it.”

“Is this really a good time? We’re voting in less than a month. If – God forbid – something happens to you, the block vote won’t be valid,” Greg says. “We’d have to start all over again.” 

“So you’d have to suffer a bit of paperwork,” Niall chuckles. “It wouldn’t change the outcome. Harry would have my shares, and Gemma, the employees and Malik voting with him. That’s still a majority vote.”

The thought never crossed Harry’s mind until now, and once is quite enough. He wants to excuse himself, dash off into the loos, but he stays where he is.

“He’d have your shares?” Greg asks, sounding amused. “Of course. Because he’s your spouse.” 

“He is, but that’s just a fact,” Niall says, cool and calm. “Got my will revised last year. If something happens to me, the shares are all Harry’s, marriage or no marriage.”

Harry’s mind zips back to the party in their cottage and the vodka shots he took with Mei, to the questions he thought were just drunken small talk. He’s had no use for his degree, but he still remembers bits of random cases where EU law affected English law because people had residency status elsewhere. He scrawled pages about them, trying to fill up space in his exam booklets after Bobby died and his studying failed. He can hear it so clearly now, Mei asking him if he’s been living mostly in the UK or if he’s like his dad, who spends the cooler months away. He didn’t think about how she knew Des’ habits or why she asked so specifically about his. 

Niall is a shrewd little fucker, Harry shouldn’t have forgotten. He didn’t want Harry pissed and horny, but he did want Harry pissed and susceptible to questioning. 

Harry drinks down his glass of water to avoid saying anything. He doesn’t know who wants out the most, Greg or himself. Greg, he thinks, who is out of water first.

Greg leads the way out of the restaurant after their meal, shaking his brother’s hand almost respectfully and thumping Harry on the back before tramping off. 

Harry and Niall walk the alleys and streets of the City in silence, the Portland stone facades lit up to make a golden maze in the afternoon sun. It feels as if they’re taking twice as long to get back to the carpark near London Wall, but neither of them seem to care.

“No clue what that was about,” Niall says when he’s unlocking the car. “All that talk about family. Almost like he’s trying to excuse himself in front of Russ. But then he’s having a go at me about messing up the block vote.”

There’s so much Harry wants to say and none of it about Greg or Bill Russ.

It’s not until they’re held up behind two buses on the Strand that Harry asks, “Do you really have a will?”

“'Course. I’ve had one for years.”

It would make sense. Niall is a pilot. He takes physical risks Harry has never had to.

“Does it really now say I’d get all your shares?”

“Yep.”

Harry resists asking if there’s anything else. Not because he wants more; he’s just wondering who will get the ridiculous things, like the hats and the hotel pens, the socks and the flying gloves. 

They cruise up Aldwych, passing the place with the really good Battenberg cake they tasted last spring, and onto Kingsway, where the traffic is horrible. They should’ve kept going west and joined the A40 near Paddington. He doesn’t know what Niall was thinking.

“You should change it,” he says, something quiet but desperate building in him. “You know I’m not going to get involved in the company, don’t you, Niall? If you like, die and I get those shares, I’d just let Gemma or Des do whatever they think should be done with them.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” 

“Yes, I would, Niall,” he insists. “I’m not good at what you do. All this helping people stuff.”

“You’re helping save twelve-thousand jobs right now, right this minute.” 

“Because it’s not costing me anything,” he says, and tucks his face against the window, knowing it didn’t quite sound like the truth. 

Niall sighs, lets a couple of students cross into Russell Square even though the light’s gone. “Voting with my shares and yours won’t cost you anything either, H.”

Harry doesn’t reply. 

At Heathrow, he’s still silent when Niall passes the car keys to him.

“MSF stopped giving out the location coordinates for their field clinics years ago after they kept getting hit. I’m on a list and it’s not a long one. I have to go,” Niall says, not apologetic, but maybe a little regretful. 

Harry jumps out of the car to get into the driver seat without a word. He’s going round the front when he sees Niall paused on the pavement, his grey scarf slipping down the left side. 

He stops and steps back to fix the scarf into place because Niall probably won’t notice until it’s on the ground. 

“What if Greg was warning you about something?” he asks after Niall thanked him.

“I told you not to think like that.” 

“But you’ve been thinking like that yourself, Niall. After the bombs at Panshanger,” Harry argues. “It’s why you changed your will.”

Niall shakes his head, glancing down at the pavement and then around, at the people pushing their bags along, the empty cars leaving the drop-off area. “You told me to do Open Days at Panshanger in case there are kids out there who might wanna do what we do – flying, designing, working on planes,” he says softly, looking at Harry. “You said to give them what my dad gave me, what our families gave us. Give them a chance to fall in love with it, you said.” Niall is quiet for a moment, with a wildness in his eyes that Harry wishes he could hear before it’s blinked away. “That’s why I trust you with my Sidwith stake. I trust you with all of it.” 

His lungs haven’t stopped working, Harry knows, but it feels like there’s only still air in his chest. He only said all of that because he thought people would be less likely to bomb places and things they loved. He still thinks that. But Niall is talking about something else, something more. He wants Niall around when someone falls in love with their planes, with the work that goes into them, the flying that brings them swooping down through the sky. He can’t bear the thought that Niall might not be there with him to see it.

“And whatever you say, I’m not changing my mind. The vote’s in a month. If something happens to me, they might not even push it back. They won’t need to. Because they’ll have you.”

It’s horrible to think about, but if he's only meant to vote with the shares, he can do it. Keep the company intact and Panshanger in operation. Make sure those kids get their Open Days. Pass dreams on.

“Okay,” he says. “I mean, I know you’ll be fine, but okay. I’ll mind them for you.”

Niall glances at the doors to the terminal and shoulders his holdall. “I won’t see you for a few weeks now, will I? You’re off to St Lucia next week? Then, what, LA for your birthday?”

“Work first, but um, yeah. You should come out for my birthday,” Harry says, even though the chances of it happening are slim to none.

“The vote’s the week after that. Someone needs to be here.” 

When he opens his mouth for the easiest rebuttal, Niall quickly puts a hand up. “Don’t volunteer your sister for it.”

“Wasn’t going to,” he lies, rocking on his heels. 

“Yeah, I could tell,” Niall grins. "Is it serious, her and Graham? She brought him to the wedding."

Harry frowns before he places the name. Graham is the bloke Gemma’s gone skiing with, the one Harry saw in her Thailand pics. "Oh. Did she? Don't think so."

“She did.”

“It was kind of a busy day,” he says, and feels embarrassed by the thought of being so messed up at the wedding that he has no memory of Graham having been there. He gives Niall the brightest smile he can manage. “Be safe, all right?”

Niall pulls him into a hug and Harry lands hard in it, breathing in the smell of Niall’s coat and hair, trying not to touch the holdall and unbalance them even more. “See you soon,” Niall says, his nose grazed up and down Harry’s neck by their swaying, his shoulder stroked by Harry’s chin, as if they’re helplessly, helplessly nuzzling.

#

Harry climbs up from the beach to the villa, snorkel slung over one shoulder, the tall hedges of pink and peach bougainvillea nodding at him in the breeze.

He sees the villa’s terracotta-coloured roof first, rising above the palm trees, the white arches and storm shutters of its living areas next, and then Nick and Spencer standing arm in arm on the pool terrace, staring off into the distance. 

They must be taking in the Pitons again, the way the peaks tower so serenely above the curve of the bay and the fishing boats crossing the blue. It’s hard not to, even after three days of being on the island. He’s been here for twice as long and he’s still not tired of the views.

He wipes his forehead with the wet t-shirt bunched up in his hand and takes the last bit of stairs to get to them.

“Harold,” Nick sing-songs from under his tortoiseshell sunglasses.

“You’re happy about something,” Harry says slowly.

Spencer snickers, putting his phone away. “Come on, Nick. Let’s get going. They’re already in town and I’m starving.”

“I thought Therese’s making us lunch.”

“She’s making lunch for two and we’re not invited,” Nick says, snickering too. “Oh god, Harold, that face of yours is precious.”

Harry stands there, dripping sweat and sea water, utterly confused and not caring if it’s showing. One of Nick and Spencer’s friends hit on him just last night, but there’s no way they’ve set him up. 

He thinks that means he’s going to starve.

“Can I come with you? It’ll take like, ten minutes, I promise. I don’t need to shower.”

Spencer sighs. “No,” he says, and Harry half hopes he and Nick both sweat through their linens on the way down to Soufriere. “Harry, go upstairs. Your husband’s here.” 

Harry doesn’t want to believe him, but there’s no reason for him to lie and Harry did get a text from Niall saying the supply run went well. Mostly, what he took from it was that Niall’s back in the UK, safe and still alive to take care of the company.

He goes into the villa, walks quickly past the ground floor bedrooms, and up the stairs to his room. 

It’s empty, the shutters wide open to the skies and the Caribbean, looking just as he left it. Except Niall’s holdall is sitting by the foot of the poster bed.

He wipes himself down, dropping the snorkel onto the tiled floor, and throws the t-shirt into the bathroom. The thought of a shower comes to mind, but he discards it and makes his way to the other side of the villa, crossing the small patio to get to the living room. 

Niall is tucked into one of the wicker club chairs by the arches, knees up, the way he always would be when he napped after a full day crisscrossing the dunes. 

He’s awake, though. For now.

He turns his head and smiles lazily at Harry standing over him. “Hello.” 

“Hello,” Harry says back, something cool pitter-pattering up his spine. “Not that I’m not glad to see you, but what are you doing here?”

"Sorry,” Niall sits up, yawning. “I know it's meant to just be you and your mates. I'm only stopping here for the night. Flying down to Brasilia tomorrow."

“Stay as long as you’d like.” Harry sits down in the chair next to Niall’s even though the hammock is where he’s been spending his time. “Are you going for work?”

“Company work,” Niall tells him. "Brazilian forestry service thinking of buying some planes."

Harry absently pulls at the hem of his shorts, rubs at the tiger tattoo he picked up in London some years back. “And Sidwith sent you?”

“Someone at head office thought the Brazilians speak Spanish, not Portuguese or you know, English. I didn’t correct them.”

He grins then. “Cool,” he says to the tat. “Are you hungry?”

After lunch, Niall takes a nap in the hammock on his recommendation and Harry doesn’t make it to the shower before he’s drifting off in his own bed. He gets up when it’s dark and cooler out, not for any reason other than the raucous laughter drifting across the property. 

There’s always rum punch in the evenings and all the couples making cow eyes at each other over dinner. 

He jumps in the shower, loving the cold water more for the way it cools the air and hits his skin than the way it’s running down him, already warming.

Clean and dressed, he takes the slow, long way round to enter the open-plan area through the kitchen so that the people who are hanging out around the club chairs and sofas won’t notice him as easily. 

They’ve been shamming for months and he’s never brought Niall out to meet his friends, like properly, not just at industry dos. Maybe he should have. Niall can talk to anyone and he’s as shrewd as they come, but Harry doesn’t know if Niall is any good at blagging to friends who have special dispensation to nose around their personal business. He’s standing by the railing underneath the arches, talking to Daisy and Emma, and Harry wonders if he’s managing all right. 

Niall looks fresher than he did, at least. He might’ve even showered seeing as he’s changed into a pair of shorts and a short-sleeved polo. He’s definitely seen Harry splayed on the bed, covered in grime and sweat, half his phone under his face. 

Harry waits until he catches Niall’s eye and motions him to come over, taking out a couple of bottles of water from the fridge in case anyone sees them. 

“Good nap?”

“Yeah,” he says. “You?”

“Great. Really good. Don’t think I’ve slept in a hammock so comfortable before.”

“You’re taking the piss out of me, aren’t you?”

Niall laughs softly. “Maybe. A bit. Slept really well, though. That’s no lie.”

“You doing okay? This crew can be a bit much if you’re not used to them,” Harry says, twisting open a bottle and offering it to him.

“Ta.” Niall takes a swig, swallows it down, and asks: “Did I tell you I saw your ex at the airport?”

Harry resists asking _Which one?_ He knows Taylor was on the island earlier in the week. It was probably her. He settles for: “Oh?” 

“She didn’t congratulate me, but I suppose she thinks she’s dodged a bullet with you.” 

Definitely Taylor. 

He doesn’t think Niall is looking for a story, but he shrugs and says, “I mean, she probably did. We went too fast. Kept pushing each other on for the wrong reasons. I’m not—It just didn’t feel right in the end.” He opens his own bottle of water, tosses the metal cap onto the counter. “I should’ve told her sooner, though. She like, put so much work into it and we had to cancel everything really last-minute.”

Niall leans over and clinks their bottles together, eyes twinkling. “Cheers for not leaving me at the altar.”

Harry ducks his head, side-eyeing him. “You and twelve-thousand Sidwith employees.”

Niall’s hand goes over his heart as he laughs, the sound like a crash over Harry’s own, hot and strange. “That’s a direct hit, right there.”

“It’s just a—”

“Oi, lovebirds. Gonna join us?” Matt yells from the living room, and Niall is turning away, going back to the crowd.

After dinner, the group splinters, a few people staying upstairs to hang out in the living room, and others going down to the terrace with more drinks in hand.

Niall goes outdoors, of course, where the stars are.

They end up on the cushioned loungers between the gazebo and the pool, Nick showing them photos of his kids with Spencer’s parents and Niall joining in with complimentary remarks but mostly looking up at the sky, one arm tucked under his head. 

The family photos lead into a riotous conversation about how Nick and Spencer met, and then how everyone else did. The history of Niall and Harry knowing each other since they were babies is deemed too boring, and they’re asked for the story of how they got together as a couple.

“God. Don’t tell me. You and Harry were each other’s first kiss.”

“No,” Niall fiddles with the beer bottle he’s got tucked in front of his chest, the label starting to tear at the edges even though he’s only worked on it with one hand. 

“I was um, a late bloomer,” Harry says from his spot by Niall’s head, knees folded. It’s not quite the truth, but there’s no other explanation for being thirteen, with four years of kisses down his belt, and Niall never giving him the sort of look that would’ve led to kissing and maybe a grope here and there.

Niall cackles. “Shut up, Harry. It’s not because I didn’t want to,” he says, looking up at him with a grin. Then he tells Nick, “I had a crush on him back then.” 

“What?” Niall must be in newlywed mode, lying through his teeth, but it’s still all right to be fucking surprised in that case. Everyone is still cooing.

Niall glances at him. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know. We were kids, but we weren’t that innocent.” He shrugs at the others. “I wasn’t out. Our families were really close. I couldn’t risk it.”

“Harry has a terrible poker face,” Daisy says, banishing the sudden poignant lull. 

“He’s the worst liar I’ve ever met,” Nick agrees.

“Ha ha,” Harry retorts half-heartedly and drains his drink. The best lies have a truth in them, he chants in his head. 

When the others are laughing about how Matt met his wife, Harry asks quietly, “Is it true, the crush thing?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t know you had a crush on me.”

“Did you not?” Niall sips his fresh bottle of beer. “Well, it’s probably a good thing you didn’t know.”

It’s mad, but two hours later, everyone full up and tipsy tired, Niall decides he’s going to sleep on the lounger under the stars and Harry takes the one next to his. They’re on a tiny island in the middle of the sea and Niall isn’t going anywhere yet, but he doesn’t want to lose sight of him.

They wake up wet to Emma and Matt cannonballing into the pool at bloody seven in the morning.

Harry tells Niall they might as well go down to the beach, have a swim before breakfast.

It’s only a smallish cove, the crescent hemmed in by cliffs draped green, but once they hit sand, Niall is rushing down like he’s five again, shucking his clothes off and throwing them over his shoulder as he goes. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Harry laughs.

“It’s hot and I wanna see the fish,” Niall shouts back, disappearing into the blue water in just his white underpants.

Harry does the same, wishing he’d thought of coming down with snorkels. 

They quickly give up trying to spot fish around the coral beds and spend an hour floating on their backs, talking about all their beach holidays together and the stupid things that happened. 

If Niall didn’t want to tell other people about his sexuality back then, Harry isn’t going to question his decision, but as they bob in the water, Niall’s laughter ringing in counterpoint with the surf, regret starts budding in his chest. If he’d only done something about it himself, maybe things would have been different between them. Maybe things would be different now. But it’s a foolish thing to wonder about. If they could’ve gotten together when they were kids, they could’ve broken apart too.

There’s something that won’t stop niggling at him, though, and he really needs to know. “Did you still have a crush on me when we were at uni?”

Niall hoots, his face dotted with sweat, stubble, and salt water. “I can’t believe we’re still talking about this.”

“It’s a perfectly legitimate follow-up question, Niall.”

“Come on, Harry. You know you were pretty hot. You were getting off with everyone you wanted to get off with.”

“Fuck.” Harry stops kicking so he sinks underwater for a moment and comes back up again, the Pitons a faint greenish grey until his eyes adjust to the sun, the water lapping at his collarbones. 

“So dramatic,” Niall mutters. 

Harry whips his head round and stares hard at Niall, who isn’t wrong. Harry _was_ sleeping with everyone he wanted to sleep with, and the list could’ve, he knows now, included Niall. He doesn’t know why he didn’t go for it that afternoon after Niall took him up on the plane, or the next day, or the day after that. He would’ve dropped everything, everyone.

 _We could’ve had so much,_ he wants to say. _We could’ve gone through it all together._ “Niall …”

Niall smiles, closing his eyes. “Don’t look at me like that. I wouldn’t have asked you to do this with me if I still did,” he says, and Harry’s stomach twists sharply. “That afternoon when I saw you at the cafe I knew it’d be all right.”

A laughs escapes from Harry, his throat tight with the loss of it. “Basically you’re saying that I grew up ugly.” 

“Why do you think it has anything to do with looks?”

“Oh, so it’s because I’m a tit?”

“No,” Niall says, straightening, opening his eyes and scanning the calm blue ahead of them. “I just grew out of it, maybe.” His shoulders twitch above water. “You can’t feel something forever.” 

It’s too late, is what Niall is saying. There’s no going back, not in this lifetime.

Harry isn’t quick enough to avert his eyes when Niall drags himself onto land, catching sight of the freckled vee of Niall’s back, his arse under the clinging underpants, the shadow of a cleft between his tight cheeks. He’s seen all of it, bare, when they were just kids, and it’s still the same body, it’s Niall then and now. But Harry’s sure, he’s never felt a hot bitterness about it before. 

There’s only time for a quick breakfast when they get back up to the villa. Niall has to hop from Saint Lucia to Suriname before continuing on to Brazil and there’s a dinner planned with the firm brokering the potential deal. 

Therese has platters set up in the gazebo, though, by the time Niall is out of the shower. Harry helps himself to fruit, eggs, and a heaping of fried potatoes. Promo season for the new album might be nearing, but he’s had a swim and a bout of calorie-burning feelings. 

Everyone wants their five minutes of chatter with Niall, but Harry is happy to sit with Nick, talking about the shortlist of tracks he’s thinking of. 

He looks up when he feels a set of eyes watching him.

They’re Niall’s, who tips his head toward the covered porch by the pool.

Harry wipes his mouth and follows.

“I have to go,” Niall says first thing, his hair mostly dried now, saltwater soft.

“Yeah. I know.” Harry wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. “But, um, thanks for stopping by.”

“You’re upset with me,” Niall says matter-of-factly.

“I’m not.”

“I kept it to myself because I had to, because I wanted to.”

“I’m not—I’m not upset about your choices, Niall, and like, I’m glad you got to choose. I’m glad no one took that choice away from you.”

“But you’re upset because we never got together. When it was still the sort of thing you’d go for.”

Harry can feel his face burning and he knows it’s not the carbs or the heat. “If things had been different, would we have kissed that day, after you took me up on your plane?”

“Did you want us to?” Niall asks in reply.

“I think it’s been in my head for years. For years, in my head it was like, the last time we were together. I guess I thought it would’ve been a proper goodbye then.”

There’s a sadness in Niall’s eyes, but his smile is breezy when he says, “It would’ve been shit, don’t you reckon? A first kiss being a goodbye kiss.”

“Maybe.” Harry swallows. He wants to say it. He has to say it, for himself. “Or maybe, sometimes, I thought if it’d been different between us, you wouldn’t have left. Not like that anyway.”

Niall’s jaw clenches and unclenches. “I meant what I said,” he finally says. “When I told you I love you.”

“I believe you,” Harry tells him, and bares the only other truth he can, “You told me about your crush on me back then. I thought I should tell you how it was for me. That’s all.” 

“Jesus.” Niall sighs. “How ridiculous is it that I do actually have to leave now? I have to make my fuel stop in Paramaribo. The head bloke there is a stickler for schedule,” he says. “But it’s perfect timing for a goodbye kiss.”

His hand reaches for Harry’s waist, drawing him close.

“I don’t need a goodbye kiss,” Harry whispers, tipping over. “Not everything has to be a joke. I’m not—”

“Indulge me, Harry,” Niall says, and presses their lips together. 

There’s cheering from the cheap seats under the gazebo and Harry breaks away. He can taste fried dough and lime juice when he bites his lips, looking over his shoulder and flipping everyone else the bird. 

A week in LA and Harry has a routine again. Breakfast, a couple of hours of working on his laptop in the guesthouse, a hike before lunch, and the recording studio for the rest of the day. They’re prepping all the tracks on the shortlist before starting on the final mix and they’ve still got to get everyone’s opinion on his selection. 

He’s in a meeting with his label when he gets a text saying the Sidwith vote has gone through, the company effectively sold to the Lampardis. 

He set aside his cover of _Wild Is The Wind_ when he was whiling away a few hours in a rainy Singapore during the holidays. He puts the track back in and it’s the final piece that completes the album. After Jeff and XL listen to all the songs, they tell him it’s their only choice for the lead single, a piece of music history rebooted just like his career. Harry convinces them there’s another time for it down the line and pushes for _Close Behind_ , which he wants to release with a video about a father and his young son. 

They’re dropping the single at the start of April, one month before the album, and the divorce petition will’ve been lodged by then, a matter of public record that anyone can find. If he’s going out to promote a song at the end of their marriage, he wants it to be the one about how there’s also good in the past too.

#

The family law solicitor, a swarthy Stuart Bunhill, has the most magnificent sideburns Harry has ever seen.

Niall was saying in the car on the way over that Tomlinson’s firm doesn’t normally handle divorces, but they’ve brought Bunhill in to keep everything quiet and tidy. Harry wonders now where Bunhill actually works and if he’s come a long way to meet them in Canary Wharf.

He leaves Niall chitchatting with Tomlinson about the Chelsea versus Real match and walks up to the conference table, where Bunhill has already sat himself down. 

In front of one of the empty high-backed chairs, there’s a cream folder waiting, his married name handwritten on the post-it stuck to the front cover, hyphen and all. He takes the chair and plays with his phone until Niall sits too and gets his own folder. 

Harry looks down, sets his phone aside, and flips open the one in front of him with the tips of his fingers. It’s not that he actually wants to read it, but Bunhill seems to expect him to.

Carefully, he goes through the pages marked with plastic tabs, not reading anything except the headers and the numbering all along the sides and at the bottom.

Niall is still talking about footy to Tomlinson, who is apparently sitting in on their signing. He glances once or twice at Harry before flicking through the pages in his own folder, but the shit he’s giving could be described as minimal.

Bunhill clears his throat. “Now that we’re all seated and you’ve had a look at your copies of the joint petition we’ll be submitting to obtain the decree nisi, the consent order, and the forms for the decree absolute down the line,” he says, like a teacher to a class full of blaggers, “I will now go over them with you.”

“I don’t think there’s a need for that,” Niall says, looking at Harry, something like concern in his eyes. “We know what’s in them and we’re agreed on all of it.”

“My due diligence—”

Tomlinson stops him with a hand in the air. “All right, all right. Go on, Stuart. It’s your show.” He turns to Harry. “I think we can manage one storytelling session before trotting off into the sunset with our new album, can’t we?” 

Harry shrugs at his tone. “My morning’s free.”

Bunhill takes a deep breath and begins. “We the undersigned, Harry Edward Styles-Horan and Niall James Styles-Horan, wish to formally …”

Harry gets up. “I’m just getting a coffee, Mr Bunhill. Please continue.” 

He goes to the spread along the window and prepares a white coffee for himself, Bunhill’s voice like a rumble he can hear but doesn’t have to pay attention to. He sips his drink slowly, looking out the window. 

March in LA has been nice, but he came back yesterday to good weather in London and there’s a kind of blue in the sky that doesn’t exist anywhere else. 

Below, a DLR train is passing into the belly of the neighbouring tower and a young office worker with a laptop bag slung over his shoulder is crossing the square, jacket in hand. 

Today is probably just any other work day to most people. It kind of is for him and Niall too. He has the album artwork to review and approve in the afternoon, and Niall is going to the Sidwith office to finalise how the Panshanger team is going to be run with him gone and only checking back from time to time. 

Niall is off tomorrow, but Harry hasn’t thought much about where Niall will go or what he’ll do. The single is out in a couple of weeks and he’s been busy with meetings and interviews. All he knows is he’ll have the cottage to himself until September, when his tenants have to vacate his Primrose Hill flat and he can move back in.

His mind drifts and it’s some time before he sits back down, but no one seems to mind. 

“I understand both of you travel extensively, but to make this as painless as possible, you will need to be contactable until the court is satisfied and grants you the decree nisi. This is in case something unexpected happens and you’re asked to appear before the judge,” Bunhill says. “When we proceed with the request for the decree absolute, that’s for the most part a matter of finalising the divorce.” He turns to Niall, smiling. “You may disappear if you wish.”

Niall chuckles awkwardly, shooting a look at Tomlinson. “Good,” he then says to Bunhill. “That’s what I do for a living. Got to pay the court fees somehow.” 

Bunhill nods, still smiling.

“How about I start,” Niall says, and begins signing the copy they’re handing in to the court. 

Harry waits in silence before it’s his turn to sign, Niall pushing Bunhill’s folder and the pen across the table to him.

“This is the most civilised divorce I’ve ever worked on,” Bunhill says to no one in particular as Harry starts going through the pages, “even after joint petitions became legal.”

“Makes you wonder why they’re divorcing at all,” Tomlinson mutters.

There’s a silence before he hears Niall’s soft laughter. “We came into it knowing we’d get on, didn’t we, Harry?” he says. “You knew you were never going to have to say, ‘My great aunt Millicent gave us that cauliflower crudité bowl so I get to keep it, not you.’”

Harry stops signing for a second to glance up at him. “I don’t have a Great Aunt Millicent.”

“She must be mine, then. Though that’s not a very Irish name.”

Harry snorts and goes back to signing. He’s just got the forms for the decree absolute request left to do.

"What the fuck is a crudité bowl?" asks Tomlinson.

"I dunno, but there's a gift box in one of the kitchen cupboards with a sticker that says, in capital letters, 'cauliflower crudité bowl'."

“In Great Aunt Millicent’s handwriting?” Harry asks, running down the coloured arrow-shaped tabs in the margins and signing where they’re pointed at.

“In Great Aunt Millicent’s handwriting. That beautiful looping cursive of hers.”

“Must’ve taken some time writing all that cursive in capitals,” he says, trying not to smile. Niall is an idiot.

“Keeps her spry.”

In the box marked by the last tab, he scrawls his signature and that’s him done. He excuses himself to go to the loo, empties himself of the cup of coffee he had when he got up and the three he just drank. 

When he gets back to the conference room, Bunhill and the folders are gone. 

Niall and Tomlinson are speaking—no, arguing in low whispers. 

They both turn to look when he sniffs from the doorway. 

Niall’s fierce eyes take him back to their walk in Regent’s Park, to how adamant Niall was about keeping others in the dark because he wouldn’t risk anyone else getting into trouble if they’re caught. He remembers agreeing to the marriage there too, a little before the warthogs, but they both knew when Niall proposed, a year ago now, that he would. 

“I’ll see you—um, back at the house, Niall.”

Niall wipes his hands on his jacket. “Yeah. Thanks for the ride, H.”

Harry nods and leaves, his mouth coffee sour, his heart beating dully. 

He’s sorting through his suitcase in his bedroom after a celebratory dinner with Sofie and a couple of people from the label when he hears footsteps down the hallway, steady, unhurried, and the kitchen door creaking open. 

Niall must be back, and it’s their last night in the cottage together.

He stands up, goes for a piss, washes his hands, doesn’t stop to think anymore. 

The kitchen door is ajar and light is spilling out onto the terrace.

Harry finds Niall sat on the steps leading down from the terrace to the start of the garden. He’s leaning back on his arms, looking up at the stars. 

"Hey," Harry says when Niall turns his head.

"Hey," Niall replies. It’s hard to see with the house lights behind them and his eyes haven’t adjusted to the dark, but it sounds like there’s a small smile on Niall’s face.

They sit in silence for a while, Harry a couple of steps higher so his feet are by one of Niall’s elbows. The air is cold but it’s a fine night, the sort that tricks you into believing spring is a pleasant time to be England. 

“I slept out here for a couple of nights last summer,” Niall tells him. 

“That must’ve been uncomfortable.”

“Not on the steps, idiot. On the grass,” he says without heat. “D’you remember when it hit thirty, thirty-one? I couldn’t stand being inside.”

“I remember when it got hot, but not you sleeping out here.”

“Ah. Yeah. You were working late downstairs.”

“I wasn’t, actually. I was just down there for the AC.”

Niall’s laughter sounds like the warmest note in the universe. Harry promises himself he won’t forget it.

He rubs his nose and asks quietly, eyes fixed to the sky, "D'you think it's been like, kind of a good marriage?"

"I would say so,” Niall replies with no hesitation, “but what do I know? 'S my first time."

"Mine too."

Niall laughs harder.

"Ha fucking ha," Harry says, but they both know he's smiling.

"You gonna send me a copy of the album when it's out?"

"Pre-order it on iTunes and help my first week sales."

"You get divorced from someone and suddenly he doesn't wanna know you anymore."

"We have a few months before all of that." It’ll take three months for all the paperwork to go through, they were told, once Bunhill submits the petition tomorrow. “You could still be the world’s number one husband in the meantime,” he suggests.

Niall snorts. “Not sure I’ve ever been that, but alright. I can support your first week sales,” he says. "When's the album coming out?"

“First of May.”

"It's gonna do well, Harry," Niall says, tilting his head up to look at him.

He’s never played the tracks for Niall so Niall is only being nice, but somehow, he knows it’s the truth. “I think it’ll do better than the last one, at least,” he says, not wanting to sound cocky. 

“Good.” Niall looks away, fiddling with the front of his jumper. “What about the single? Isn’t that one out soon?”

“A couple of weeks.”

“Really? I’m probably still gonna be in Ireland with Ma and Chris. I’ll go clean out the HMV in Dublin for you.”

“Wear a disguise.”

“A little handlebar moustache,” Niall puts in. 

Maybe not tomorrow night, or the night after, maybe not soon, or when he hears Niall is back in the country again, in the cottage without him. But someday, it will hit him. Being close to Niall, letting their minds wander together in every stupid way they want to go, hearing his warm laughter, seeing the apples of his cheeks drawn up by a smile, will be what he misses the most. 

"Where are you going after?" he asks. 

"I dunno yet," Niall replies after a moment. "I’ll probably start with a little diplomatic run first off, just to ease back into it. But a mate of mine in Uganda is thinking of starting up an outfit to cover all the work the bigger companies don’t do anymore. I think I told you, most of them are chasing NGO contracts in the Middle East these days. If he can get the permits, it’ll be worth sinking some of the Sidwith cash into." 

“Cool.” Harry hasn’t even thought about what he himself will do with the money from the Sidwith sale, but at least he knows Niall is going to be in Uganda at some point. He sounds serious. 

"Yeah. Could really be something, if I’m honest with you. He wants to do a not-for-profit school on the side. The Machimbe Horan Flying School." Niall grins. "How does that sound?"

In another world, it could be the Machimbe Styles-Horan School, Harry muses, and he’d be proud of Niall there too. "Sounds good. Very professional," he says. "Maybe I’ll be your first student."

“Well, you’d have to be a fee-paying student. We’ll do sliding scale fees. Can’t be having free lessons for multimillionaires.”

“You get divorced from someone …” he mimics.

Niall laughs, drawing himself up off his elbows.

Harry catches himself looking at Niall’s shoulder and arms working to get him sitting just a step away. 

He ducks his head, focuses on his own lap. 

He’s got his wedding ring on still. So does Niall, sort of, because he never did find the one they bought at the shop. Maybe they should leave the rings on until after the divorce is finalised, although he doubts anyone will check on Niall. When he tells Jeff, which will have to be soon, he knows Jeff will say he should keep his on and ride the tide of press until it’s better that he has it off. 

“Hello,” Niall says.

Harry stops drifting and looks up.

"One for the road?" Niall asks, turned toward him.

Harry finds himself nodding and leans over.

Niall reaches up, his hand cupping Harry’s face. Their lips meet and there’s a rush he knows is some kind of love, some kind of good enough. 

When they break apart, Niall doesn’t let him go. He pulls Harry a little closer and kisses his forehead, tucking Harry against his chest, and Harry realises he’s somehow slid down to sit by Niall.

They stay in the silence for a while, looking at the stars together.

In the morning, Harry sees Niall's suitcase and holdall on the floor by the front door but not his car in the drive. He's probably gone to run an errand before he leaves. 

On the coffee table, there’s a couriered envelope with Harry’s name on it. It’s his copy of the papers from the firm. The same folder, the same post-it note with the smudged hyphen. He leaves the envelope where he found it, picks up his keys from the tray on the console by the door, and drives for town. When he gets back, he'll put away the folder so he can give it to Sam for filing. He’s much better with his paperwork these days. He just doesn't want to end up being here still when Niall comes back for his bags and leave again.

#

The single went straight to number one and there's a real buzz about his new album. The paps are back at it too, following him everywhere he goes when he’s in town. A sharp, probing sort of attention is building and he knows it’ll lead up to that old familiar feeling of everyone wanting a piece of him again. It's the sort of frenzy that an album needs, but a flash of dread courses through him when he’s walking away from Broadcasting House after his interview with Nick and he sees someone fishing out his takeaway coffee cup from the bin.

It’s a relief to be staying at the cottage still, having sunlight stream through his bare windows and the M25 between him and stomach-curdling things.

He wants to thank Niall again for letting him stay on through summer and warn him about what’s coming. It's a matter of weeks if not days before someone finds their divorce petition. Not to mention how whenever his team flag his marriage as a no-go area for TV appearances and print interviews, they’re also drawing attention to it.

"They got there before me," Niall says when he picks up, his voice scratchy and warm.

"What?"

"Your fans. They bought out the HMV before I could do it."

Harry smiles, feeling his eyes start to burn. "I hope you still ordered it on iTunes," he says, trying for levity.

"The EP is good, H." Niall coughs. "Caught you on Graham Norton too. Well done."

"Thank you." They're words Harry wants to hear again and again coming out of Niall's mouth, but it's no good if he doesn't set a limit to wanting, to needing. "And thank you for letting me stay at the house. It's nice being out here. It’s like I have a job I can leave behind when I need some sleep," he laughs, and hears Niall laugh too, sounding so close. "But they're going to pick up on the divorce petition any day now. Don't google yourself on the internet for a while. It'll fuck with your head."

Niall chuckles. "Not worried. I don't care what people say about me. 'Sides, I've never googled myself in my whole life. Why would I start now?" Harry is about to say his management does all the monitoring for him nowadays when Niall adds, "That kind of PR doesn't matter for what I do. Not the way it affects you, all the record sales and that."

"It's part of the job."

"Hell of a job," Niall says. Harry wishes he could see Niall's nose wrinkling like he knows it's doing right now. "You'll put in a good word for me with Anne and Gem, though, won't you?"

"They've known from the start, Niall."

"Yeah.” Niall exhales. “I suppose they have."

There’s really nothing more to say. It’s probably time to get off the phone. 

“Are you still in Dublin?” Harry asks. Niall was the one who mentioned the HMV. It’s polite to want to know.

“Yeah. A couple more days.”

“How’s your family?”

“Good. They’re all good. Glad to be going, though. Honestly can’t do another big dinner.”

He wants to ask where Niall is off to, if Niall needs him to post the rest of the stuff he’s left in the box room. But that would just be him making more of the mess still keeping him stuck hard to Niall. Like scar tissue, like that bloody parting line, like tomatrimony. That’s not the way to move on.

“Goodbye, Niall. Good luck out there.”

“Goodbye, Harry. Take care of yourself.”

He clutches his phone tightly, like he’s all claws and he needs to hide them. He remembers holding it the same way, after Niall kissed him in Lambert’s studio. He didn’t know it was because he was sad and angry that a dream wasn’t coming true.

He’s booked to do three songs on _Later … With Jools Holland_ in a few days. He’s got _Close Behind_ to open with and for the middle of the show, he’ll sing what he, XL, and Jeff have agreed will be the second single off the album. He’ll be closing the show with the third song, and he doesn’t know what its producers will say about a six-minute performance, but he knows _Wild Is The Wind_ is the song he wants to go out with. 

There’s some back and forth about his selection, and a question from the people at _Later …_ about cutting down the last performance, but after he sends an email to Jools about how he’ll take off one of the other songs if he can do the full version, the original set gets the green light. 

Jools pulls him aside when he gets to the studio on the day of the taping, suggests himself as the pianist for the last song. 

Harry agrees, flattered. Jools doesn’t often accompany his guests these days. If it goes tits up, it’ll be a laugh anyway.

But there’s nothing to laugh about at the close of the show. His phrasings seem in turns larger and smaller, his vowels hollow, his consonants full to breaking, as if the song is sheering up from inside of him. 

“ _You touch me, I hear the sound of mandolins. You kiss me, with your kiss my life begins._ ” He sings, and instead of watching out for what Jools and the band are doing, he’s remembering the silky feel of the spray roses on Niall’s boutonniere, the steps he took to meet Niall in front of the registrar. “ _You’re spring to me, all things to me. Don’t you know, you’re life itself._ ” Instead of waiting for the tom fill that’s his cue to get ready for the final verses, he’s drifting in the smell of the sea and Niall next to him. 

His mind grows helplessly frantic and what he remembers later is how cold the mic was in his hand, how the square switch on it felt round against his thumb, and how he lost a couple of breaths during the final build, his emotions getting the better of him. 

He’d be embarrassed, and maybe he is a bit, but from the faces of everyone else in the studio in Maidstone, he can tell he’s done a good—maybe a great thing. Music is where he’s always put the things most precious to him, where he’s always been most himself. He’s sung the song now. He’ll watch the show on telly, the video on his phone, and he'll be in a place he’s made for that Harry inside of him, a place he can’t seem to have in this life otherwise.

After the post-show drinks, Harry spends the night at Gemma’s and she takes it upon herself to drive him to Heathrow the next day, claiming he looks like he could use some sisterly attention. She’s probably right. He’s got a week of album promo in the States before it drops and he has to come back to London, do more interviews. He’d love it if she’d come with him, at least for the first leg in New York.

“I’m throwing a party in a couple of weeks,” she tells him.

“Okay,” he says, sleep heavy, having only gotten up after lunch. When she doesn’t elaborate, he looks at her from the corner of his eye. “That’s good?”

She lifts her right hand off the steering wheel and waves it for a second, making it sparkle. “I got engaged.” 

“To—” He stops himself. “No fucking way. Congratulations!” It must be that bloke, Graham. She just hasn’t told him anything because he’s been up his own arsehole moping about Niall.

He doesn’t give her a hug across the gearbox because she’s doing eighty-five on the motorway. He does tear up a bit, though, for the second day in a row.

#

Harry doubts Des keeps up with him by reading the Mail, but on the day the story about his pending divorce hits, there's a car waiting for him outside of the cottage, parked so he can't leave in his own unless he runs over the birdbath. He has the day deservedly off and wasn’t meaning to go anywhere, maybe just down to the coppiced wood in the valley to see if what he thought at sunrise was right, that the runts have been leafing.

As the car drives off, he sinks into his seat, looking out the window at the sky, and hopes what Des has to say won’t take too long to deal with. He told Gemma he’d be home if she wanted to vent about her engagement party planning.

When Sylvie closes the doors to the office, leaving with drafts of emails Des took his time dictating, there’s a silence before Des asks: “Do you mean to go through with this divorce?”

“No. 'Course not,” Harry says, chewing. “We submitted the papers just for laughs.” 

Des lets out an irritated sigh. “I thought you and Niall would actually make an honest go of things.”

Harry puts his half-eaten croissant down. It’s an old hurt, being told he fucked up when things were rigged from the very start. “What’s honest about getting married for the sake of the company?” he says. “And please don’t say you didn’t know.”

“Do you expect me to believe that’s all it was to you both?” 

“Dad, just because two blokes like cock doesn’t mean they’re meant for each other.”

The look on Des’ face isn’t the one Harry expected. It’s definitely not the one he wants to see. He hates pity. It makes him feel smaller when he needs to be bigger, softer when he needs to be harder. 

“Have I ever told you about the last conversation I had with Bobby?” Des asks, getting up from behind his desk.

“No.” Harry shakes his head. He’s always hungry for stories about Bobby and if it’s a good one, he could pass it on to Niall someday. Maybe years from now, but still, someday.

“He rang me up, told me Niall had been acting strange. Niall was always stubborn, he said, but he’d never made trouble for anyone before. He was due to get the first new Aquila off the assembly line, but he pushed to get it much earlier. Went up to the plant himself to talk to Geoff Payne about it, called up every day to make sure it would be done.” 

Des sits down in one of the armchairs across the coffee table and motions for Harry to pour him some tea. “Bobby never put up with nonsense, but he let Niall off that time.” He waits for Harry to hand over the tea before continuing, “You see, Harry, Bobby had the idea Niall might’ve been wanting to impress someone, that maybe he wanted to show that plane, something he’d had a hand in getting made, to someone he liked.” 

Harry offers Des the bowl of brown sugar, feeling his hand tremble as if he’s spent too many days working with no sleep. 

“Bobby sounded proud.” Des takes two cubes of sugar and stirs. “He sounded happy for Niall.” 

Niall should be the one hearing this story, Harry thinks. He should be here, have his doubts put to rest.

“After the accident, I didn’t think much about his call, except about how that Aquila was the last plane Bobby got to shepherd all the way through to delivery,” Des says, pensive. “Years later, I’m in a stuffy ballroom looking at a silly little screen, my only son sat like a lost deer at his own wedding, and there’s a photo of him in front of that plane with the widest smile on his face. And I thought Bobby was right to be happy. _I_ was. I was happy for you. For the both of you. No matter how it happened.” 

He knows his father isn’t actually going in and out right before him. It’s just his vision going blurry. “Niall never said. He just came up to me one day. It wasn’t like we were—” He wipes his eyes with the backs of his hands. “He never—”

“I’m asking you again, Harry, do you mean to go through with this divorce?”

“Of course I do. I have to.” He sniffles. “Dad, that was like, ages ago. He doesn’t feel that way about me anymore. I’m not going to ask him to stay with me just because—Just because I want him to.” He looks away, feeling very small. “It’s too late anyway. He’s gone. Like, literally.” 

He hears the clink of cup and saucer and turns to see his father’s unfinished tea left on the table. “Sometimes I wish he’d never gotten the taste for adventure. He’s the Horan brother the Lampardis want on the board of directors, not Greg,” Des says, already halfway back to his desk. “I’m left with that mess to take care of, never mind I’m no longer on the board myself.”

“Still not my fault, Dad,” Harry reminds him, snappish. Snappish is good. Better. Des’ office is not a place where Harry gets to be weepy. “Have you ever thought about how he might just like, prefer living abroad?”

“Is that why he’s put your name on the house?”

“What house?” It feels like someone else asked the question even though he could hear his own voice. 

“The property in Hertfordshire. Bobby’s old house. Your name is going on the deed.”

“No. That isn’t—That can’t be right. The prenup says we’d leave with the assets we came with and personally accumulated during the marriage,” he tells his father, quoting the agreement almost word for word. “Someone’s made a mistake. I’m just staying there until I get my flat back.” 

“The division of assets is clearly outlined in your divorce papers. The consent order explicitly refers to the agreement you and Niall—” There’s shock on his father’s face, as there probably is on his own because he can’t seem to feel his body. “My god, Harry. Are you still signing documents without reading them?”

“No.” Fuck. He tries again, “It’s Niall, Dad.” 

Harry waits for Des to start on him about foolishness and irresponsibility, but Des only stays silent, looking at him.

“He said he’d sort it all out,” Harry explains. “I trusted him.” Niall building the studio seems less ridiculous now. If only because he’s outdone himself with this ridiculousness. “He trusted me with—With things. And I guess …” There’s a warmth filling up his body like daylight, showing him where he is. “I guess I trusted him back.”

“People divide up shared assets in divorces, Harry, not create them,” Des says gruffly. 

It’s been a whole year of Niall making his life easy, giving him what Niall thought he wanted. Burgers and toast. Christmas with Bobby. A good goodbye. And now a refuge to use whenever he’d like.

Harry runs a shaky hand through his hair and stands. 

“Niall should know,” he starts, “about what Bobby said to you. It’s been on his mind, Bobby and him.” His father looks up from the grey binder on his desk. “I should tell him in person. It’s the kind of thing you tell someone in person.”

Des nods. “Good idea, Harry. While you’re there, get a promise out of him, will you? Make him come to the next Sidwith board meeting,” he says. “No obligations, of course,” he grins, “not unless he finds the sport to his liking.”

#

Niall’s number isn’t in service, but Harry doesn’t bother with email. He knows who to call next.

“You’ve probably heard about the divorce petition, but we didn’t—All the stuff they wrote in the tabs isn’t true. We ended well,” he says after she answered and didn’t immediately hang up. “Niall made sure of that.” 

“I’m sure he did,” she says. “You’ve always been very important to him,” she adds after a moment, and it sounds almost like a warning.

He bites his lip and takes a deep breath, his face turned away from the phone. He promised himself he’d go with cheery and trustworthy, not dramatic and fragile. Sam’s focused on the road instead of fretting, though, so maybe he’s doing okay. 

“I just want to talk to him, Maura,” he tells her. “I just want to thank him for everything. For loving me the way he did. Or does. I don’t know. Does, I hope.”

She sighs and all he can think of is he’s half an hour away from Heathrow with no city yet to fly to. “Be truthful now, Harry. You want to do more than that. I saw you on Jools Holland’s show.”

He feels his face heat up. “I don’t—”

“Did you know, I saw Nina sing that song live at Ronnie Scott’s, back in eighty-four. Bobby and I had just met then. We were dating, you could say. She was incredible. I’m not saying her performance was better, but—Well, maybe it’s harder to enjoy when someone is singing it about your son. I did say Bobby and I were dating, didn’t I? I’m always telling Niall to watch his mouth, but listen to me, talking to you about ...” Maura peters off. “So, you want to know where Niall is. I suppose you’re asking me because you want to know if I’m going to tell you or not.”

He’s always been a little terrified of her. It’s the candour. Or maybe all the times she got him to confess he didn’t brush his teeth before bed. “Yeah. Um. Yes. I do. Please.”

“He’s in Berlin,” she says, and it sounds like she’s smiling, a little terrifyingly. “Hold on a minute and I’ll text you the address.”

#

It’s early afternoon when he gets to Charlottenburg, a little warm even though the taxi is air-conditioned and his bomber jacket isn’t a heavy silk.

There’s a yellow van and a motorcycle blocking the mouth of Schlüterstraße, and three people arguing as if there’s been a collision or a near miss. 

He gets out of the taxi at the corner, the driver pointing him to go up the tree-lined street.

He’s walking the pavement, counting the building numbers, when a flash of red on the other side of the street makes him turn his head. It’s only the awning covering a restaurant’s outdoor tables, but he stops, recognising the blond, the hair a lighter shade now but familiar to his loud, loud heart. 

Niall is sat outside in a white t-shirt and a pair of sunglasses, the arm of the thin, dark-haired guy sitting next to him slung around his shoulders.

Harry knows now why he recognised the name TU Berlin. The guy is probably Zayn. The flat Harry is looking for is probably Zayn’s flat. They passed by the uni when the taxi circled a massive roundabout not five minutes before it let Harry out.

He puts his phone away. He doesn’t need the address anymore.

He’ll email Niall and say he’s in Berlin for the night. He has appointments in London in the afternoon tomorrow, but he can give Niall until noon to meet him somewhere. 

He lifts his head when he hears Niall’s laughter, his mind racing. 

The guy is jabbing Niall’s chest as if trying to make a point and Niall is gently pushing him back with both hands.

Harry sees it then, his ring on Niall’s finger, gleaming bright in the afternoon sun. 

A quiet happiness spreads through him and he’s never been gladder about wearing his own wedding ring. He runs a hand through his hair, checks his reflection in the car parked closest to him and the road both ways before crossing over. 

He couldn’t see it from where he was standing, but Liam is at the table too, his chair tucked up against a planter, and it’s Liam who sees him first.

“Hello, mate,” Liam says, as if they’d said they’d all meet there and Harry’s just a few minutes late.

Niall looks up, his smile disappearing, his hands tucked now under the table. “Harry. What you—”

“It’s Gemma’s engagement party on Saturday,” Harry says quickly, unceremoniously. “You’re coming, aren’t you?” 

Niall’s mouth is gaping open, his eyebrows raised. 

All Harry can hear are the faraway sounds of traffic from the main road and bird music from the trees above. He thinks of the sky he’s crossed to get here, the sky he’ll be crossing back with or without Niall, and steps closer.

“It’s one of those things I need to bring my husband to,” he says. “If he wouldn’t mind.”

The thin, dark-haired guy pushes Niall off his chair and onto his feet. “I swear to god, Niall,” the guy and Liam both say at once, startling themselves and laughing into each other’s faces.

“Can’t go anywhere with these two,” Niall says, sounding resigned. He puts a hand on Harry’s arm and leads him away, further along the pavement. 

They walk in silence up the street until Niall stops in front of a cream building, pulls keys out of the pocket of his jeans, and gets them inside.

The apartment is on the third floor, its living room facing a large inner courtyard flooded with afternoon light. Niall puts his keys and sunglasses down on a console littered with framed photos, his smiling face prominent in them. But what Harry can’t stop looking at once he’s seen it is the telly, frozen on the list of recordings the digibox has made. One of them says _ZDFkultur Later with Jools_.

Something flares deep in his belly, hot and sharp. He flicks a glance at Niall, who is standing rigid by the sofa, no doubt having noticed him noticing. 

Harry’s mind pulls at a bigger thing, a surely more important thing. “I need to tell you a story I heard about Bobby,” Harry says. 

Niall turns at that. 

Harry is about to continue, to tell him what Des said, when Niall takes quick, steady steps toward him and stops only when he’s already kissing him, nose brushing against his cheek. 

Harry kisses him back, slowly, shyly, thrilled by the affection still between them.

“I love you,” Niall says, kissing him again, hands fisted, snug against Harry’s sides. “I love you, love you, love you.”

Harry doesn’t know who Niall is saying all of it to, the Harry singing in the recorded episode or him standing here, but maybe in this place, here and now, they’re the same. He puts his arms around Niall and leans into him. “I love you,” he whispers back, and Niall grasps at his shirt, pulling it into his fists, clinging to him. “I love you like, a lot.”

Niall chuckles tightly and Harry brushes a hand through his hair, cradles his neck. He coaxes it to tilting so he can kiss Niall again, lick the corners of his mouth, touch his face, feel the freckled skin now faintly blushed, gentling him. 

“I didn’t know you—Eejit,” Niall exhales, eyes shining bright. “I thought that’s not what you go for anymore,” he says, and rests his forehead against Harry’s. “Why didn’t you say?”

“Why didn’t _you_ say?”

Niall makes a sound of embarrassment, tipping back and letting him go. “Come on. This way,” he says, and leads them down a hallway filled with bright, bold prints. 

“Zayn let me stay here for a couple of months after a bad job,” Niall tells him. He looks over his shoulder when Harry slows to a stop. “No. Don’t worry.” He motions Harry to start moving again. “I did two, three runs and they were fine.” He shrugs, turning into a room, one hand on the doorway. “I dunno. Didn’t feel like staying out there. Summer’s nice in Berlin.” 

Niall is as much a workaholic as he is, but Harry won’t push. Niall will tell him when he’s ready.

The room is sparse, but not unlived in. There’s a woollen rug on the floor, a desk and chair, and wall-to-wall metal shelving with a few books on it, a couple of comic book figurines. There’s also a double bed pushed up under the windows, Niall’s holdall and suitcase tucked neatly against it.

Niall moves a familiar dark blue button-down off the bed and gets out of his Chelsea boots. “Get in,” he says warmly, already doing so himself, his competent hands flipping and folding back the covers as he goes. 

Harry takes his jacket off and gets rid of his own boots. 

He climbs onto the bed and lies on his side, mirroring Niall, who’s watching him all the while with gentle, thoughtful eyes.

His first thought is to tell Niall the story about Bobby, but Niall grasps the hand he has tucked up near his face and Harry slides closer so their knees are almost touching, their forearms lying flush against each other on the creased sheets, their fingers intertwining.

And what he says, a little breathless, a little lost in the past and in the future, is: “I know about the house.”

A blaze of surprise crosses Niall’s face, his grip going slack for a moment. “Harry. I—”

“You weren’t expecting me to,” Harry says, suddenly uncertain, trying to see and not seeing. “Why? I was going to find out sooner or later, Niall.”

“I thought it might be a bit later.”

“And by that time you’d have disappeared. Or you’d be dead.”

“Still so bloody dramatic,” Niall says. “No, Harry. I expected you not to notice until after the divorce’s gone through.” He puts his other hand on Harry’s chest, stroking his t-shirt, and adds, “I thought maybe we could make a clean start after that.” 

“In our ex-marital home that we own together,” Harry says quietly, and the stroking stops. 

“Maybe a clean start isn’t the best metaphor,” Niall says, even quieter. “Can’t exactly erase the past, can we? Everything we did, everything we said.”

Harry doesn’t want the past erased, but he doesn’t want to live in it either. He’s not so good about the latter, though, and he’d probably hold them back. “I have my flat in London. That’s close enough. We’d be near enough to each other,” he says, his voice shaky. “You didn’t need to give me half your house.”

“I think I did,” Niall tells him, eyes glassy. “I kept thinking about the day I showed it to you. I saw you standing there, these oily crumbs on your lips, the sun a bit behind you. You were so beautiful, and you were wanting to know why I just disappeared on you. And I dunno. I didn’t have an answer. I just thought, the next time I have to go, I’d make sure you’d be all right.” 

He exhales, his fingers rubbing the back of Harry’s palm through their joined hands. 

“Then we started living together, and you were away a lot, but whenever you were back, you seemed to enjoy the place. And I suppose, I thought if you knew there was a place that was ours, like a place for us to always come back to, maybe it wouldn’t be so hard for you. Or for me. Cos that’s what a home is, isn’t it? A place where we’re sure we’ll see each other again, no matter how long we’re apart.” 

Harry nods, smiling, remembering the nights he’d come back to the cottage and find the table lamp in the living room left on for him, in faith.

Gently, Niall wipes at Harry’s face, smiling back at him. 

“And that’s what kept me going this past year. Sharing that house with you. Having a home to come back to.” His breathing hitches and he closes his eyes, sinks under Harry’s fingers wiping away his tears too. He clears his throat when he blinks open his eyes and says, “I was hoping you felt the same and we could start there. Maybe see how we go.”

Harry untangles their hands so he can scoot closer and nuzzle Niall’s nose with his own, lie in his arms, feel the rise and fall of his chest. 

In the silence, Niall starts rubbing the back of Harry’s neck, scratching the hump at the base underneath his collar, and Harry feels a hot and sharp sensation building again in his body. “Can we start seeing how we go now?” he asks, looking up.

Niall laughs softly, wetly. “Yeah,” he says, cupping Harry’s jaw. “'Course we can.”

Harry turns his head, kissing Niall’s palm, reaching for his wrist so he can feel where the pulse beats. “What kind of going can we do?”

“Any,” Niall breathes out, voice low and sweet and steady.

It’s easy, then, to put Niall’s hand on his chest, ask for help pulling off his t-shirt, ask Niall if he can pull Niall’s off too. It’s easy to get on top and kiss Niall at the join of his neck and shoulder, tip closer when Niall’s fingers press into his waist and hip, breathe out the rush when Niall puts his hand on his stomach, stroking one of the laurel tattoos with his thumb, and says, “I love these.” 

Harry kisses him again and sweeps Niall’s other hand up above his head so he can lick his wrist, worry at it gently with his teeth.

Niall makes a small noise that’s like a whimper, the echo of it sharp and deep in Harry’s chest, and Harry wants.

“It's not the tears or the snot that's turning me on, Niall, I promise, but—”

“Yeah,” Niall says, his hand sliding lower to palm Harry through his jeans, making Harry press down into the touch just to ease the hot pulsing on his back, the hunger for everything. “You don’t need to tell me. I’m right here with you.”

“But we’re done crying, aren’t we?”

“'Think so.”

“Okay. Good,” Harry says, and helps Niall with both their jeans, and then their pants, marvelling at the tug and brush of all that skin under his fingers, until they’re both naked, faces up close.

“You didn’t have to give me half your house to tell me you wanted to come back to me,” he says, rubbing his hand up and down Niall’s hip, ignoring his hardening dick. “You could’ve just said.”

Niall strokes Harry’s chest with the back of his hand. “I didn’t know if you would've believed me. 'Sides, it made you come looking for me, didn’t it?”

“'Thought I’d save myself the wait.”

“You’re not known for your patience, are you,” Niall says, and lowers his hand, taking Harry's dick and pumping slowly, looking into his eyes as if there’s nothing else he’d rather do. Harry’s face heats in the warm air between them, Niall’s tight grip all along his dick, the edge of his ring a little harder than skin. He moans, grappling at Niall’s chest, and Niall pulls back, giggling, his hand still on Harry’s dick, still pumping. “Harry, are you hearing mandolins?” 

Harry wants to box and kiss him at the same time. He sinks his fingers into Niall’s chest instead, idly rubbing one nipple with his thumb and finds he can rub the other with his pinkie at the same time. 

“How about now?” Niall asks again, one shoulder tipping closer, pressing his chest, nipples sweetly tight, into Harry’s hand.

Harry laughs. “Shut up, Niall.” What matters in that bit of _Wild Is The Wind_ is the desperation in the minor melody, he wants to say, but he already feels doubly naked.

“Had to look up a video on YouTube. Didn’t even know what a mandolin was,” Niall tells him. He tightens his grip around Harry's dick, moving his thumb in circles over the taut skin, quick, clever, and makes what he must think are mandolin noises but sound to Harry like an idiot going _pew pew_ with an imaginary laser gun. “How about just now?”

Harry shakes his head, wildly turned on anyway, his heart beating into his ears. "Will you fuck me after I come?" he asks softly.

Niall blinks. "Christ,” he mutters, raw. “I'll fuck you whenever you want me to, H."

"Is that a promise?" Harry asks, trailing his hand down Niall’s stomach, grasping the warm weight of Niall’s dick with his hand, his knees twitching with the pleasure of it. 

"I'll fuck you for as long as we both shall live," Niall says, surging to kiss him.

Harry kisses him back, giggling, stroking his dick loosely, the ridge so perfect along the wells between his own fingers, loving the feel of it, of Niall being here with him.

Niall moves his hand faster, calling Harry’s whole body awake like it’s soaring in warm air, and Harry tips forward with the rush gathering in his belly, breathing in the sweat on Niall’s collarbones, coming, loose and wet all over them both, Niall stroking him through the last of his pulsing. 

“Did you bring any slick with you?” Niall asks, his breathing heavy too.

“No.” Harry shakes his head, bumping against Niall’s chest. “Don’t you have any?” he asks, drawing stickily back, looking up at him, stroking Niall’s dick again, a little wet now with Harry’s come.

“Ah.” Niall’s eyes flit from Harry’s torso to his face. “Haven’t bought any since we got married,” he says, confessional, almost embarrassed.

“Me neither,” Harry says, feeling the same, his heart swooping. 

“D’you mind waiting?” Niall asks, using his hand to wipe Harry’s come off his own stomach. “If it’s been a while, I don’t want the first—”

“Yeah.” Harry grabs Niall’s hand, hopes Niall doesn’t mind Harry smearing the come all over his dick, their tangled hands moving together. “No,” he clarifies. “Another time. Anytime.”

“Christ. Yeah,” Niall gasps. Harry nips Niall’s upper lip, wets it, feels it soft and swollen against his own lips. “Good idea. But just let me—” Niall rolls on top of him, rutting against his come-spattered hip. “Like this.”

“Yeah,” Harry agrees, Niall sliding over him, a warm weight all over, his dick hard and hot over Harry’s hip and stomach. 

Harry’s spent, his body slack, but there’s still a thrumming in him and a light, sloppy nudging against his soft dick as Niall moves over him. He runs the backs of his knuckles along Niall’s thighs, up his hips, kneading. 

Niall makes a frantic noise and closes his eyes, moves a little higher on his arms, nuzzling Harry’s neck, his breath hot.

“Do we really have to get a divorce to start all over again?” Harry asks, cupping Niall’s arse cheeks, feeling the damp skin over muscle and fat, his own hips twitching at the thought of fucking and being fucked by him. Later. Tomorrow. Forever.

“Jesus.” Niall laughs, moving faster now, his face and torso smeared pink. “I don’t know, Harry,” he says, kissing him again, coming to him with each slick slide, coming to him for this, for Harry, with wonder in his eyes.

“Come back with me today,” Harry urges against his sweetly parted lips, the beat all over his own body rushing stronger. 

“Yeah. Okay,” Niall says, breath hitching. “Okay.” 

He comes with a little whine, his body dropping sharply, and Harry holds on to him, helps him land gently, breathing in his musk and sweat, waiting to release him when he’s ready.

Niall tips over, half on Harry, when he finally stills, his hand landing in Harry’s hair, brushing it softly, lazily. “I loved that,” he says.

“Me too,” Harry says, and covers Niall’s hand with his own when it drops down to his chest. He feels his ring on Niall’s finger, its parallel lines and the mess of scratches across its ridge, and hopes that’s where it will always belong.

For a few quiet moments, they stay crisscrossed on the sheets, easing each other with idle touches and the slowest strokes of fingertips over cooling skin.

“Niall, don’t you think that maybe,” Harry starts when Niall gets up on one elbow, as if he’s looking for something, “in the best possible of worlds, it was what would’ve happened anyway? You and me, together. Married. Cos we wanted to be.”

“Technically, we did get married because we wanted to be,” Niall says, reaching for his t-shirt and wiping Harry down.

Harry shimmies to get dry faster. “No, I mean, there you would’ve asked me to marry you not just for a year. But for like, a really long time. Like, until death do us part long,” he says. “Or maybe I would’ve asked you. I think it would’ve been me. Asking you.”

“We’re still married, Harry. We could stay married for a really long time.” Niall yawns, tossing away the t-shirt. “Like, until death do us part long.”

“Ha ha,” Harry says at the parroting. He rubs at his own chest and stretches deeper into the bed, liking the feel of the sheets scratching him. 

When he wakes up, not meaning to have napped, they’re lying side by side. Niall’s hand is clutching the covers as if he’s managed to pull them over himself and Harry, but couldn’t quite get settled in before falling asleep.

“Hey,” Niall says hoarsely, stirring.

Harry turns his head. “Hey.” Niall gives him a sleepy, lopsided smile and he gives Niall one back. “This is a nice room,” Harry says after they’re silent for a while, watching and not watching each other. He doesn’t want to talk about getting a flight and leaving for the airport just yet.

“Very nice,” Niall agrees, stretching and rolling over, half his face sunk into the pillow. 

Harry is almost certain of it, but he asks anyway: “That guy with Liam, was that Zayn?”

“Excellent observation, young Harold.”

“Are they together now?”

“I dunno,” Niall says lightly, moving his head so he’s not so muffled. “But I think they’re happy the way they are.” He leans in and kisses Harry’s cheek, coaxes him to roll over too so they’re spooned together. “Who’s Gemma engaged to, anyway? That bloke Graham?”

“That bloke Graham.”

“You thought they weren’t serious.” 

“I was wrong,” Harry admits. “I’ve been wrong about a lot of things.”

“You have?” Niall says, kissing the back of his neck.

“Yeah.”

“It’s not just me, then,” he pauses to say before getting back to it, mouth warm and wet over Harry’s skin. 

Harry smiles, looking out the glass windows at the sliver of sky above them. 

He knows it’s late in the day, but the sun is still up, and there’s always some way to get home. 

“I love you,” he says, happy.

“It’s not just me, then.” Niall peppers his nape with more kisses, rubbing gently at his sides.

“Niall. I’m trying to like, profess my undying love.”

“Me too.”

“So will you marry me?”

“Harry, we’re still married.”

“Then just say yes, Niall!”

Niall puts a solid arm around his stomach. “Yes,” he says, pulling him closer, kissing his shoulder. “Of course yes.”

#

It’s a Wednesday afternoon in late winter, the draught in the cottage warring with the new wood-burning stove they installed in the living room. Their next project should be sealing up the house properly, but he won’t think about that right now. They hadn’t seen each other for a month until two days ago, Niall out in Kampala and Harry too busy prepping for the tour to be with him. Except for a walk on the footpath down into the valley and back, they haven’t left the house since.

Seeing the near-empty state of the fridge, Harry musters Niall off the sofa and gets him to drive them both to the Waitrose by the station. 

At the carpark, Niall manoeuvres the Pagoda into a spot close to the edge of nowhere and coasts into the one across for an easy exit. 

Harry likes to see if there’s anyone on the raised station platforms filling time before their train comes, but they’re both empty. There’s only a mud-splattered grey car idling by the minicab office near the station entrance and a man smoking a pipe by the ticket machines, his coat tails flapping. 

“Come on, H.” Niall has his hands shoved into his jacket pockets, shoulders hunched in the cold, but there’s a smile on this face. “Your husband’s balls are about to drop off.”

Harry still flushes at the easy way Niall refers to himself as Harry’s husband, as if that’s how it has always been, as if they were always meant to be like this. 

“I’ll warm them up for you later,” he says, elbowing Niall when he gets up to him and veering away when Niall retaliates.

Inside the supermarket, they take a basket each and he loses Niall to a conversation with the guy working the meat and seafood section. 

He goes off to get eggs and milk, looks around for some goats cheese and nuts, a box of tea, a couple of cubes of Kleenex, and wanders back along the aisles. He’s not a very picky shopper. If there’s a shape or colour that catches his eye, he’ll have a look and if it doesn’t sound gross, he’ll give it a go. It’s led to arguments with Sam and Gemma before, and with Alice and Johnny way back when, but Niall usually makes nice meals out of the things he picks up. 

He goes back along the counters, but Niall isn’t there anymore. The beautiful salmon he saw earlier is, though, and he asks for it.

“That’s a big fish,” Niall says, coming up to stand beside him as the salmon is getting wrapped. 

“’S nice, isn’t it?” 

“’S pretty,” he agrees. “I suppose we’ll need dill and lemons for it.”

Harry looks into Niall’s basket and sees a rotisserie chicken, a couple of steaks and two bags of crisps. There’s also an apple tart and a thick loaf of bread. That’s a few days without needing to come back out, a few days of just being with Niall. “I’ll grab those,” he says. “I want oranges anyway.”

When he's done getting the fruits, he finds Niall back by the rows and rows of greens, his basket already full of veg for roasting. Niall is turning over a packet of endives in his hand, like he's checking for ugly spots, his forehead all crinkled up.

“Knock knock.”

Niall looks up, eyes staring right into his. “Who’s there?”

“Endive,” Harry says. It's a good one. Niall will think it's funny. He has to. He's got the veg in his hand.

“Endive who?”

“Endi Varhol.”

Niall laughs and Harry remembers being up in the air with him, last week, last year, a decade ago, sunlight seaming the clouds and the blue of the sky together as if just for him. 

“How long you been saving up that joke for?” Niall asks.

Harry is about to say he’s saved it up for years, but he stops himself because it’s not true. The joke was in an old film he watched not long after they moved into the house, not even two years ago. “How long d’you think? Endive is a seasonal vegetable, Niall.” 

“Dust it off once a year, do ya?” 

“If the stars align.”

“If you’ve got all your veg in a row,” Niall says, putting the packet in his heaving basket.

A wild cackle tumbles of out Harry and Niall looks at him, cheeks flushing. “I think we need vinegar,” he suddenly says, and disappears, probably embarrassed by the cackling.

Harry goes to look for dill before he forgets.

When they meet again at the cashier’s, Niall’s face is only faintly tinged pink. Niall puts a divider down on the checkout belt once the lady in front of him is done unloading her basket and starts laying down the stuff from his basket, moving them around.

"Heavy things first," Niall explains, as if he's noticed Harry watching him.

Harry picks up another divider and puts it down between his stuff and Niall's. The strip still has the supermarket's ad on it from Christmas.

Niall laughs. "What you doing?" he asks, picking up the divider and putting it away by the side of the till.

Harry ducks his head, feeling himself flush again. He’s usually one or two people ahead whenever they’ve been to the supermarket together, and they did have their own baskets. 

His fingers are numb by the time they’ve got the shopping in the car because he’s the idiot who forgot his gloves and Niall’s the idiot who doesn’t believe in parking as close to his destination as possible. 

“D’you want to stop for coffee on the way home?” he asks when Niall is pulling out of the spot.

“Could do.” 

They take the long way to the village, the car warming up again. Niall is driving with his legs spread loosely on the seat, like he could go on doing it for ages and ages, a small smile on his face. 

Harry is thinking again about a trip down to Cornwall in the summer, in the week off tour. They could go to the house if it’s still there, or an entirely new place for their families. 

“I’ll run in,” he says when they’re moving slowly up the busy high street. “D’you want your usual?”

“Yeah. Cheers,” Niall says absently. But when Harry has the door open, Niall stops him with a hand on his arm. “Wait.” 

He feels himself being yanked back and turns his head. “Wha—” he falls silent when he feels Niall’s mouth against his, Niall’s eyes taking him in. 

He’s falling, literally, with each sweet brush of Niall’s tongue. They should forget about the coffee. Drive on. Get home. Get in bed, get naked, kiss each other for the rest of the day. He might be saying all of that out loud. He doesn’t know. Doesn’t care.

Niall breaks away, laughing, steadying him with a firm hand. “Go. I’ll do a loop and come back for you.”

Harry sighs but he obliges and steps out onto the pavement, the wind flicking at his collar, hurrying him.

~

_Once a thing’s done, no one ever knows how it happened_  
(((Plataea) Thucydides) Anne Carson)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please consider [reblogging the fic post](https://fromward.tumblr.com/post/142909044814/the-parting-line-harry-gets-up-theres-nothing).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [made this place for you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12695433) by [from](https://archiveofourown.org/users/from/pseuds/from)




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